culture

Articles

DevOps team bumping fists 7 Ways to Change the Culture for DevOps Success

The hard part of successful DevOps isn’t implementing the technology; it's ensuring you have the right culture in your organization. You need to break down silos and align competing priorities and individual incentives to gain real benefits from DevOps. Move beyond thinking about technology alone and look at the people side of the equation. Here are seven ways to create a successful team that delivers the benefits of DevOps.

Steve Jones's picture Steve Jones
Roadblock You’re Ready for DevOps—but Is Your Workplace?

In order to adopt DevOps, organizations need to be able to embrace the openness it requires, encourage experimentation and innovation, and work across departmental silos. You may be ready to encourage collaboration and communication to reap the benefits, but what if your company culture isn't? Here's how you can influence your organizational dynamics to lay the groundwork for DevOps.

Matt Hilbert's picture Matt Hilbert
The Space Shuttle Challenger launch Prevent Disaster by Righting Cultural Dysfunction on Your Team

The space shuttles Challenger and Columbia were two of NASA's biggest disasters. Investigations into these accidents discovered the engineering issues responsible, but management practices and cultural barriers also were found to be contributing factors. Does your organization have a healthy culture that lets you safely voice concerns? It could help you prevent tragedy.

Payson Hall's picture Payson Hall
team holding hands Understanding Culture and Agile Application Lifecycle Management

While the technical complexity of real-world ALM may be substantial, sometimes the people issues present even more complex challenges. Being able to understand the personalities and work culture of the folks doing the work can help you implement ALM in a comprehensive and effective way.

Leslie  Sachs's picture Leslie Sachs

Interviews

The Keys to a Successful Software Team: An Interview with Andy Kaufman
Podcast

In this interview, Andy Kaufman, the founder of the Institute for Leadership Excellence & Development, explains why team chemistry is often an afterthought, how enthusiasm can often trump skill, and how to deal with conflict.

Josiah Renaudin's picture Josiah Renaudin

Conference Presentations

Is the Software Improving?

How can you tell if software is improving? Many QA professionals have found calculating statistics and using various metrics useful in monitoring and predicting software development progress. In this presentation, Anna Allison takes a look behind the scenes of software projects to learn how even simple metrics are useful. Learn how to effectively use metrics to report, predict, and manage your own software projects.

Anna Allison, A2 Software Solutions
Testing in the Cold

"Testing in the cold" refers to those times when you feel there is no commitment to testing and people or other circumstantial factors are not being cooperative. Hans Buwalda provides forty-five tips for testing in such a situation, including issues on commitment, politics, managing expectations, dependencies, difficulty of testing, motivation of participants, and practical issues and problems. Learn how to successfully "test in the cold" when circumstances appear to be working against you.

Hans Buwalda, CMG TestFrame Research Center
Changing the Software Culture

Many of software's current problems stem from the pervasive culture of software organizations. This "hacker" culture glorifies rapid coding, is schedule-driven, and objects to measurement and planning. Commitments are generally missed while quality is unmeasured and unmanaged. In this presentation, Watts Humphrey describes steps to change the current software culture and its consequences. Learn how the Personal Software Process (PSP) and Team Software Process (TSP) guide engineers in planning and measuring their work. Explore the benefits of following a defined, planned, and measured process and the guidelines for making these practices more general in software organizations.

Watts Humphrey, The Software Engineering Institute
Golden Rules and Tools for Establishing a Quality Culture

Developing and implementing a quality program across an entire organization can be a daunting task. Managers want immediate results and value for the money they invest; software developers don't want to be bothered. Learn how to tackle this challenge head-on and discover the "golden rules" to use to help promote and manage quality in your organization.

Laura Jenkins, Lucent Technologies

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