Development Culture
It might be possible to express the development culture as a continuum with a shop where everyone is unhappy and doesn’t enjoy working there on one extreme to a shop where everyone enjoys working there so much that they would do so for free. All companies involved in solving business problems with software based solutions should strive for the happier extreme because the quality of the solution will be much better than a solution created under the whip of the task master. The popularity of books such as Patrick Lencioni’s “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team” attest to the recognition of businesses in the value of a happy and engaged development team. Happy developers care more deeply about pleasing customers and work harder and smarter to provide satisfactory solutions that will last and improve the productivity of their customers. Unhappy developers do little more than the minimal work asked of them and are unlikely to innovate or put forth alternatives that could improve the software development processes and technology they currently use.
Cultural problems create friction for any other changes you want to try to introduce. Cultural problems usually need to be addressed before any other changes in order to gain some acceptance for other changes.
When people hate their job it is harder to introduce change, harder to get people to accept ownership, quality is usually poorer which usually means more processes are needed to improve quality. For example, more emphasis on test coverage may be needed, also more staff spending time testing and more formal test plans with tracking and sign-off.
Development cultures exist along a continuim. The two extremes of the continuim are:
- Team members loving working each day and greatly trust their teammates, enjoy they job, love their customers and the software solution they provide. Mistakes are tolerated, the focus is on team outcomes and not individuals.
- Most team members look forward to retirement or a new job. They don’t like working with many of their co-workers and don’t trust them. Company incentives are based on individual performance that creates competition between team members. The penalty for mistakes or not following orders is severe, which suppresses creativity and attempts to make improvements.
How do your teams feel about the company, managers, work environment, and work they are doing?
- Developers love the benefits of the company and their teammates and direct managers
- Developers love the benefits of the company, but are not as happy about their teammates and direct managers
- Developers are not happy with the directors and business owners of the company
- Developers love the company mission and goals
- Developers are not aligned with or care about the company mission and goals
- Developers love the work they are doing
- Developers are unhappy with the work they are doing
- Developers love their development process
- Developers hate their development process
Example Culture Archetypes
- High‑trust, high‑autonomy culture
- Command‑and‑control culture
- Craftsmanship culture
- Experimentation culture
Indicators of a Healthy Culture
- Psychological safety behaviors
- Cross‑team collaboration patterns
- Developer‑led improvement initiatives
- Customer empathy rituals
Anti‑Patterns
- Blame‑oriented retrospectives
- Hero culture
- “Just get it done” pressure cycles
- Incentives that reward individual output over team outcomes
Templates
- Culture self‑assessment checklist
- Team norms charter
- “Ways we work” one‑pager