Psychological Safety in Software Teams

[ashfurrow]

The idea s simple: teams made of people who feel safe to be themselves and to ask questions/point out mistakes perform better than teams without these traits.

Resources:

• NYT article on Project Aristotle
• Quartz Article on Psychological Safety
• Amy Edmunson's talk on her research
• OSFeels talk
• Quartz article on empathy helping students / lack of empathy hurting students

What I need now is a compelling story around psychological safety to tell.

[ashfurrow]

Okay, some initial thoughts on audience profile and goals of the post. Still need to figure out a story to tell.

Statement of purpose:

Evidence shows that teams with psychological safety perform far better than ones without. We're going to explore the evidence so you can take it back to your bosses and change your workplaces, so you can improve psychological safety on your teams, so we can all change the software industry together.

Business objectives

• Participate in and build high-performing teams.
• Managers: maintain effective teams & retain effective team members.
• Positively contribute to the performance of their teams, be valuable to their organization.
• Build software with minimal delays, with as few bugs as possible.

Business challenges

• Humans are tricky.
• There is inertia in businesses, they're slow to change even in the face of evidence.
• Retaining software developers requires a differentiated workplace.
• Businesses often discount feelings, believe (incorrectly) that working harder will help a project (even though we accept adding more people won't help projects).

Personal aspirations

• Perform at their best so they get recognized at work and advance their careers.
• To feel safe and comfortable in their work environments.
• Do their best so they feel satisfied in their work.
• Improve their skills by learning from more experienced teammates.

Personal fears

• Being touchy-feely might be seen as being weak.
• Admitting mistakes might lead to negative consequences.
• Their managers might dismiss the idea of psychological safety, in spite of the evidence.
• Work to improve the team isn't really work.

What do I want people to do?

• Take evidence back to their bosses and improve their own team's working conditions.
• Being touchy-feely isn't the same as being empathetic (/via @searls).
• A 10x developer is someone who makes the five developers around them twice as productive (TODO: look for a source on this quote).
• Take initiative to start implementing psychological safety techniques in their own teams.
  • Improve the average emotional sensitivity by paying attention to teammates' emotions.
  • Make sure everyone on their team participates in conversations.
• If they're team leads:
  • Admit fallibility, normalize struggle.
  • Frame all work as primarily a learning experience.

What do people need to know to do those actions?

• The evidence shows that feelings matter, and that empathy is helpful for productive teams.
• Psychological safety helps teams perform better. It is a predictor of team performance, there is overwhelming evidence to support this.
• What is psychological safety? What characterizes it?
• How would someone improve the psychological safety of their team?
• How to include others in conversations?
• How to fix when someone gets interrupted or cut off?
• Everyone makes mistakes and everyone struggles. Acting in ways that demonstrate you understand this normalizes these ideas on your team.
• Psychological safety should be a job criteria. It is still a differentiator in this industry, and an effective way to boost retention, recruitment, and performance.

How do I want people to feel?

I want people to feel like the software industry is profoundly broken, but I also want them to feel capable of fixing things, to believe that their actions make a difference.