InfoQ

Culture & Methods Trends Report March 2021

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  • COVID-19 was the biggest driver of culture change in the last year
  • There are dramatic differences between good and bad remote work cultures
  • Management practices are evolving to adapt to the new ways of working and the expectations of the workforce
  • Creating real psychological safety and focusing on employee experience is hard, but pays off in terms of engagement, motivation and outcomes
  • Ethical issues, diversity and inclusion and tech for good make a difference and need to be addressed purposefully.

COVID-19 was the largest influence of change in the culture and methods space in 2020 and the knock on effects in 2021 are driving many of the trends we see at this time.  The previous trends report was released early in the pandemic and we now have a year’s worth of content to explore how the IT world has adapted and responded. There have been many examples of great collaboration, teamwork and adapting to new ways of working along with plenty of stories of hardship, Zoom Fatigue, mental and physical health challenges and other impacts as people have adapted to working from home, managers have changed long-held beliefs about remote work and organisations have adopted new technologies to support the shift.

Source: Culture & Methods Trends Report March 2021

Engineering Culture Trends Report – March 2021 Podcast

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In this podcast the Culture and Methods editorial team discuss their views on the current state and trends in the Culture and Methods area that they monitor.  The editorial team consists of Ben Linders, Craig Smith, Doug Talbot, Raf Gemmail, Shaaron Alvares and Shane Hastie. Unfortunately Shaaron was unable to join in the recording, however her perspectives are included in this and in the accompanying trends report article.

Source: Engineering Culture Trends Report – March 2021

Draft Published of the Code of Ethical Conduct for Agile Coaching

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The Agile Coaching Ethics Initiative has published a draft code of ethics that aims to raise the standards around agile coaching. It runs under the auspices of the Agile Alliance to independently represent the wider agile community.

The January 2021 draft of Code of Ethical Conduct consists of 18 points covering 9 subject areas:

  • Confidentiality and information security
  • Acting within your ability
  • Introspection and continuing professional development
  • Conflicts of interest
  • Social responsibility, including diversity and inclusion
  • Ensuring the relationship is valuable for both coach and the client
  • Agreeing on boundaries
  • Abuse of power
  • Responsibility to the profession

The Ethics Scenarios provide guidance on how the code relates to common challenges experienced by agile coaches, whether they are experienced or new to the role.

The expectation is that anyone taking on agile coaching at any level in an organisation will be able to use this code to help guide their behavior when faced with ethical dilemmas.

For questions and feedback on the code of ethics and the related agile scenarios, you can contact the initiative team at AgileCoachingEthics@agilealliance.org.

InfoQ interviewed Craig Smith and Shane Hastie about the code of ethical conduct.

Source: Draft Published of the Code of Ethical Conduct for Agile Coaching

Software Teams and Teamwork Trends Report Q1 2020

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  • Remote work is suddenly the new normal due to the impact of COVID-19, and many teams are not fully ready for the change
  • The spread of agile ideas into other areas of organizations continues—business agility is becoming much more than just a buzzword
  • At the practices level, Wardley Mapping is one of the few truly new ideas that have come into this space recently. Invented by Simon Wardley in 2005, they are gaining traction because they are truly a powerful tool for making sense of complexity.
  • The depth of impact that computing technology has on society has heightened the focus on ethical behavior and the move towards creating an ethical framework for software development, as well as growing concern in the environmental impact the industry has.
  • Diversity and inclusion efforts are moving forward, with a long way still to go
  • Practices and approaches that result in more humanistic workplaces, where people can express their whole selves, are recognized as important for attracting and retaining the best people and result in more sustainably profitable organizations

Source: Software Teams and Teamwork Trends Report Q1 2020

Culture & Methods – the State of Practice in 2019

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The latest Culture and Methods Topic Graph shows the topics that the editorial team feels are gaining traction and should be explored at the beginning of 2019.

  • Several new ideas came into view in 2018, but few from the previous year have managed to jump the chasm to Early Majority adoption.
  • Many organizations are embarking on “Digital Transformations”, often the same ones who have undergone two or three “Agile Transformations” in the past without seeing the promised benefits. We believe that this is because the adoption is often implemented “to pay lip-service” to the idea, and is shallow rather than truly transformational.
  • Pragmatic approaches that mesh ideas from agile, DevOps, Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence are appearing, and the methodology brand wars are diminishing.
  • “Shift Left Security” is slowly becoming the norm – DevSecOps and variations are bringing compliance and security into the product team rather than seeing these as independent specializations.
  • Organization and culture design continue to be two important pillars for achieving more effective outcomes.  The new models such as Teal Organisations, Sociocracy (and S3), Holacracy are starting to gain more traction but still have a long way to go.

Source: Culture & Methods – the State of Practice in 2019

The 2018 InfoQ Editors’ Recommended Reading List: Part Two

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As part of our core values of sharing knowledge, the InfoQ editors were keen to capture and share our book and article recommendations for 2018, so that others can benefit from this too. In this second part we are sharing the final batch of recommendations

Source: The 2018 InfoQ Editors’ Recommended Reading List: Part Two

Engineering Culture and Methods InfoQ Trends Report – January 2018

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At InfoQ we regularly revisit the topics we focus on based on the technology adoption curve. This article provides a view of the topics which are important to the community at the beginning of 2018.

  • There is no longer a question about should an organisation adopt an agile approach to software development – some form of agile is now the norm for software development
  • Craftsmanship is becoming more prevelant in software development 
  • Culture is recognised as a competitive advantage and an attractor for the best people and teams
  • Distributed and remote teams are becoming the norm
  • Diversity in all its forms matters today
  • Ethics in software engineering will become more and more important
  • Developer Experience and removing friction in the development process makes a difference to productivity and business outcomes

Source: Engineering Culture and Methods InfoQ Trends Report – January 2018

ThoughtWorks Sold to Private Equity Firm Apax Partners

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Global software development and digital transformation company ThoughtWorks is to be acquired by London-based private equity firm Apax Partners. The terms of the deal were not disclosed and it is expected to close in Q4 2017.

Source: ThoughtWorks Sold to Private Equity Firm Apax Partners

Agile 2017 Keynote: Creating Leadership and Engagement at Every Level

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At the recent Agile 2017 conference in Orlando, David Marquet, retired Navy captain and author of best selling book “Turn The Ship Around!” gave an entertaining keynote on intent-based leadership.

Source: Agile 2017 Keynote: Creating Leadership and Engagement at Every Level

Jenkins Gets a Facelift with Release of Blue Ocean 1.0

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Jenkins, the popular open source automation server that is used by development teams worldwide for continuous integration and continuous delivery pipelines, has recently announced the general availability of Blue Ocean 1.0.

Source: Jenkins Gets a Facelift with Release of Blue Ocean 1.0