Methods

InfoQ Culture & Methods Trends 2026: The Human Side of AI Engineering Podcast

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This is the Engineering Culture Trends Report for 2026. Featuring a panel of QCon speakers and InfoQ contributors, they discussed AI adoption maturity and risk.

Source: Culture & Methods Trends 2026: The Human Side of AI Engineering

InfoQ Culture & Methods Trends in 2025 Podcast

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This is the 2025 Engineering Culture Trends Report. The InfoQ editorial team and special guest Charity Majors discuss how AI is transforming software development and team performance.

Source: InfoQ Culture & Methods Trends in 2025

InfoQ Culture and Methods Trends Report – 2025

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This report summarizes how the InfoQ Culture and Methods editorial team sees the ongoing and emergent trends in the culture and methods space.

  • AI tools dramatically increase development speed but come with quality concerns, creating a need for new testing and quality approaches.
  • Team collaboration remains essential despite AI advancement; there’s a risk of engineers turning to AI rather than colleagues for solutions, potentially undermining the collaborative culture that drives high performance.
  • Junior engineers remain vital to the industry, with today’s juniors adapting quickly by using AI as a learning accelerator before approaching senior colleagues with more refined questions.
  • Psychological safety continues to be fundamental for high-performing teams, though it’s being challenged by post-pandemic organizational cultures and economic pressures.
  • Observability costs are constantly growing, organizations need to view observability as a strategic investment rather than just a cost center.
  • Agile and DevOps practices have become so integrated into industry standards that they’re now “the air that we breathe,” with platform engineering emerging as the next evolution, bringing product and design mindsets to developer tooling.

In the annual Culture & Methods Trends Report podcast, InfoQ’s Culture & Methods editorial team, with special guest Charity Majors, explored the shifting landscape of software development culture, tools, and practices. The wide-ranging discussion revealed several key trends shaping how software teams are working in 2025, from the profound impact of AI tools on development practices to evolving perspectives on team performance and observability.

Source: InfoQ Culture and Methods Trends Report – 2025

InfoQ Culture and Methods Trends Report – April 2024

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The Culture & Methods Trends in 2024 cover the value of staff plus engineers, DevEx metrics, ways to make remote teams effective, challenges with diversity and software development impact on climate.

  • Whilst remote working presents challenges to innovation and collaboration, there are effective techniques to address them
  • Staff-Plus engineers bring value through far more than their technical skills
  • Developer Experience can be measured and there are metrics that can be used to find small improvements that make a huge difference
  • It is possible and practical to include climate impact as a quality attribute of a software product
  • The use of AI tools, such as large language models, can enhance the work of good programmers but do not replace the need for human expertise and creativity

This report summarizes how the InfoQ Culture and Methods editorial team sees the ongoing and emergent trends in the culture and methods space.  We discuss evolving roles within teams, particularly the way staff plus roles can add value, the use, and misuse of DevEx metrics, how remote and asynchronous work continues to evolve, the fact that a lack of diversity is still a challenge in information technology, the slow pace of adoption of modern leadership approaches in many organizations and the need to move from climate change awareness to climate-conscious software engineering. Of course, we could not explore trends today without looking at the impact of AI and LLMs, but we looked at them from a risk and benefit perspective for the people involved in software engineering.

Source: InfoQ Culture & Methods Trends Report – April 2024

InfoQ Culture & Methods Trends in 2024 Podcast

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In this podcast the Culture and Methods editorial team along with special guest Jutta Eckstein talk about the current state and trends we see in the technology industry in 2024.

Source: InfoQ Culture & Methods Trends in 2024

InfoQ Culture & Methods Trends in 2023 Podcast

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In this podcast the whole Culture & Methods editorial team plus Rebecca Parsons, CTO of Thoughtworks, explore the trends they see happening in the technology industry in 2023.

Source: InfoQ Culture & Methods Trends in 2023

InfoQ Culture & Methods Trends Report – March 2023

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The two biggest factors influencing organisational culture in early 2023 are the highly publicised and hugely disruptive layoffs across the tech industry and the emergence of Large Language Models such as ChatGPT.

  • The layoffs in big tech have had a dampening effect on psychological safety across the whole industry
  • Generative AI tools like Co-pilot or ChatGPT can have a significant impact on developer productivity but are also significantly flawed 
  • Responsible tech is more than just regulatory compliance and companies are having to be more socially responsible in order to attract and retain customers and employees 
  • Asynchronous work is becoming much more accepted and organisations adopting the practices are gaining real benefits
  • Hybrid workplaces are now the norm, it is very important to be deliberate about the reasons for bringing people together in person, rather than just having a fixed schedule

Source: InfoQ Culture & Methods Trends Report – March 2023

InfoQ Culture & Methods Trends Report March 2022 Podcast

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In this podcast the InfoQ Culture & Methods editors, along with special guest Sandy Mamoli, discuss what they have seen over the last year and the trends they see going forward.

Source: InfoQ Culture & Methods Trends Report March 2022

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

YOW! 2015 – 40 Agile Methods in 40 Minutes

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YOW_2015_Conference_-stacked-PNGMy presentation from YOW! 2015 called “40 Agile Methods in 40 Minutes” is available on Slideshare. The video is also available on YouTube.

With 73% of the world using Scrum as their predominant Agile method, this session will open up your eyes to the many other Agile and edgy Agile methods and movements in the world today For many, Agile is a toolbox of potential methods, practices and techniques, and like any good toolbox it is often more about using the right tool for the problem that will result in meaningful results.Take a rapid journey into the world of methods like Mikado, Nonban, Vanguard and movements like Holocracy,Drive and Stoos where we will uncover 40 methods and movements in 40 minutes to help strengthen your toolbox.

WHO SHOULD ATTEND

Software developers, Agile coaches / Scrum Masters, technical leaders, business analysts, testers and anyone with an interest in the variety of approaches available to Agile teams and organisations.

It was a privilege to be invited to speak at YOW! 2015 which is considered to be the leading software development in Australasia. The talk was delivered in 3 cities: Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. It was also an honour to have some of the most influentional people in the Agile community attending including Dave Thomas, Dan North and Don Reinertsen.

Here are some of the live tweets from each of the 3 conference talks: