InfoQ Homepage Culture Content on InfoQ
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How a Safe-to-Fail Approach Can Enable Psychological Safety in Teams
Companies can establish a culture of psychological safety among their employees, a culture in which failing is not frowned upon but rather is accepted as something that can happen to anyone. Safe-to-fail should be part of the corporate culture. A shift in the way we envision success can lead to a better understanding of where failure lies and provide courage to overcome our fears.
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Four-Day Work Week Gaining Traction
A number of studies and reviews have recently been published which look at the changes needed and the impact of shifting to a four-day work week. The consensus is that, while there are some challenges to be overcome, generally shifting to a four-day work week results in happier, more engaged staff with increased productivity.
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Tech People: Enhance Your Professional Journey with Mindfulness
In software development, we need to focus carefully and stay focused in order to be productive. Especially during a lockdown, people in tech are faced with stress, lack of concentration, and other mental problems that reduce their focus and motivation. To enhance tech people’s professional journey, a suggestion is to combine testing with mindfulness.
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Collective Learnings about Remote Working during Covid-19
The response to the pandemic showed how to make sure people are productive and included in a hybrid environment, and it's all due to the learnings we carried on from March 2020. Many organisations demonstrated how it’s possible to work in an inclusive and productive way even if people are distributed around the world.
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Remote Working Risks Increasing Toxic Cultures
In a study conducted in May 2021 of 133 US companies, 29% of the respondents said that team spirit and working relationships have suffered from working remotely, with 11% leaving or planning to leave because the company culture has become toxic. Toxic cultures result in demotivated and disengaged employees and have a significant negative impact on organizational outcomes.
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Fostering Cross-Cultural Collaboration
Building intercultural relationships are so important to success in the workplace and world today, yet many people are hesitant or unsure of how to build relationships with those who are different from themselves. The first step is to reflect on yourself and notice where and how you spend your time and resources.
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Paving the Road to Production at Coinbase: QCon Plus Q&A
As Coinbase scaled both their number of engineers and customers, they needed more projects, faster iteration, and more control over their growing infrastructure. In developing their in-house deployment tool by looking at what developers were doing and trying to help them, they created a culture of self-service.
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Becoming Personally Agile for Mental Health
Feeling the need to be constantly producing high-quality deliverables with a high sense of perfection can lead to stress and can cause burnout. You have to first accept that you have a problem to find your way out of burnout. Applying agile on a personal level can help you to achieve high goals while reducing stress and lowering the chance of getting burnout.
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Creating and Nurturing an Intentional Remote Culture
Company culture isn’t built in the short term, nor can it be imposed. It’s deeply rooted in the founders’ ideologies and behaviours around work. From there, it grows and evolves organically as the company hires individuals who embrace these values, and who also bring their own identity into the mix.
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The International Week of Happiness at Work
During the last week of September, from the 21st to the 27th, companies and individuals around the globe are invited to celebrate the International Week of Happiness at Work for the third time. The event was created to promote happiness at work around the globe and companies are encouraged to organize events to focus on increasing happiness at work
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A Rising Tide Lifts All Boats: DevOps Dojo Stories from DOES London 2020
Dojos were a popular topic at DevOps Enterprise Summit London 2020, appearing initially in Gene Kim’s opening remarks on the first day of the three-day virtual conference when he referred to Target’s dojo framework as shared in the IT Revolution Forum ebook. The concept went on to feature in talks from adidas, Virgin Atlantic, Comcast, Sky, Verizon, US Bank and Walmart.
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Mental Wellbeing in the Tech Industry: QCon London Q&A
Businesses are losing a lot of money to mental ill-health. The pace at which the tech industry moves and the pressure to deliver can leave staff struggling to keep up. People have different sweet spots for pressure and performance, and they change over time; the way to know an individual’s sweet spot is by talking to people to find out how they work.
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Looking after Mental Health and Wellbeing During COVID-19
In times of crisis such as what is happening around the world with COVID-19, anxiety, fear, sadness, anger and frustration are normal reactions and we need to accept that these emotions will happen without minimising or denying them. There are things which you can do to help overcome the stress; empathic responding is one way to positively deal with the stresses we all find ourselves under.
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How to Embrace “You Build It, You Run It” with Paul Hammant at QCon London
Paul Hammant talked at QCon London about having developers responsible for the first line of support in production, as the saying goes, “if you build it, you run it.” Hammant recommends following this practice only if there are proper support levels and escalation policies defined. As a result, companies could reduce the chances of burnout or staff quitting.
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Trust in High Performing Teams: QCon London Q&A
High-performing teams flourish in a culture of trust and safety. It’s important that trust come both from within and outside of the team, in order to avoid isolating teams from their stakeholders. Stephen Janaway shared his experience with trust in high performing teams at Qcon London 2020.