Engineering Culture by InfoQ
InfoQ
Software engineers, architects and team leads have found inspiration to build better, high performing teams by listening to the weekly InfoQ Podcast. We have achieved that by interviewing some of the top CTOs, engineers and technology directors from companies like Uber, Netflix and more. Over 500,000 downloads in the last 3 years.
Episodes
Mentioned books

Nov 20, 2019 • 20min
Maartje & Fennande of Happy Office on Creating a Culture of Happiness at Work
In this podcast, recorded at the Agile India 2019 conference, Shane Hastie, Lead Editor for Culture & Methods, spoke to Maartje Wolff and Fennande van der Meulen.
Why listen to this podcast:
• If you want to transform organisations and make them future-proof, then happiness is crucial to success because happy people get better outcomes
• When people feel they have a meaningful job that contributes to meaningful results, feel connected to their colleagues and are able to have fun at work they are more engaged which gives better results for the individuals and for the company
• The drivers for happiness are different for each person – there is no single recipe that can be applied to every organisation
• Happy companies have formulated their purpose very clearly and have translated that purpose to values and linked those values to behaviours
• The four pillars of a happy workplace are:
o Purpose – having a meaningful job
o People – feeling connected, belonging to the group
o Progress – making progress towards meaningful goals is the best motivator at work
o Play – being able to have fun at work
More on this: Quick scan our curated show notes on InfoQ https://bit.ly/2QBD6Ru
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Nov 11, 2019 • 22min
Dave Farley on Taking Back Software Engineering
In this podcast, recorded at the Agile India 2019 conference, Shane Hastie, Lead Editor for Culture & Methods, spoke to Dave Farley about what it means to build a real profession of software engineering.
Why listen to this podcast:
• At the very hard end of computing you need genuine engineering disciplines to be successful
• Most of the previous definitions of software engineering have got it wrong because they tried to be too prescriptive
• In many ways software development is a fashion industry – we chose technologies, languages and approaches based on who if the most persuasive orator rather than empirical evidence
• Extreme Programming and continuous delivery have the characteristics of genuine engineering disciplines because they are focused on the engineering practices that enable you to build high-quality products fast
• Pair programming unlocks the capability of individuals and teams to learn
More on this: Quick scan our curated show notes on InfoQ https://bit.ly/33B2YAz
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Nov 4, 2019 • 31min
Travis Kimmel on What Makes a Good Engineering Manager
This is the Engineering Culture Podcast, from the people behind InfoQ.com and the QCon conferences.
In this podcast, Shane Hastie, Lead Editor for Culture & Methods, spoke to Travis Kimmel of Gitprime about the challenges of being an engineering manager, the value of metrics and how to use them wisely
Why listen to this podcast:
• There is lots of information about the “stuff” of engineering, but very little on the human processes of engineering
• Without a data layer that gives insight into the process the manager needs to interrupt the flow of work to understand what’s happening
• The difficulty in running an engineering team is ensuring that the impulse to build is aligned with the overall business goals
• The state of nature for engineering is a group of people building interesting things that make sense from a business value perspective – if any of these point stops being true then dysfunction creeps in
• The data generated by a team should be consumed by the manager of that team and they use it to tell the story of how the team is doing to others
More on this: Quick scan our curated show notes on InfoQ https://bit.ly/2JNqpil
You can also subscribe to the InfoQ newsletter to receive weekly updates on the hottest topics from professional software development. bit.ly/24x3IVq
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Oct 28, 2019 • 16min
Lynne Cazaly on Embracing “ish” and the Dangers of Perfectionism
In this podcast, recorded at the Agile on the Beach New Zealand conference, Shane Hastie, Lead Editor for Culture & Methods, spoke to Lynne Cazaly about the dangers of perfectionism and using visual tools to make sense of information and ideas.
Why listen to this podcast:
• “Ish” has come to mean approximately or good enough
• Perfectionism is the opposite of “ish” and is dangerous
• We often overcomplicate things and spend inordinate amounts of time trying to achieve a standard that is not necessary
• Perfectionism is a serious problem today and is causing personal and social harm
• Sensemaking as a way of understanding the deeper meaning of what is being talked about or expressed
More on this: Quick scan our curated show notes on InfoQ https://bit.ly/2PsGwW6
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Oct 15, 2019 • 20min
Ivar Jacobson on the Essence of Software Engineering
This is the Engineering Culture Podcast, from the people behind InfoQ.com and the QCon conferences.
In this podcast Shane Hastie, Lead Editor for Culture & Methods, spoke Ivar Jacobson about his work defining the essence of software engineering.
Why listen to this podcast:
• Method prisons capture mean that the practices of different methods are not seen as complimentary and mixing approaches is very hard
• Most large organisations have adopted many methods created by many different gurus which often results in chaos and misunderstanding across groups are trying to achieve the same outcomes with different approaches
• Software development is the largest expense in today’s economy – globally organisations spend more money on software than any other aspect of their business
• Using the Essence language methods can be described using a common taxonomy and this enables bringing ideas from multiple approaches together in a way that enables them to be adapted to a specific context
• The kernel of software engineering is true irrespective of which languages or tools you use
More on this: Quick scan our curated show notes on InfoQ https://bit.ly/2OQEi2s
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Oct 8, 2019 • 35min
Jeff DeLuca on FDD and Transforming Large Organisations to Product Thinking
In this podcast Shane Hastie, Lead Editor for Culture & Methods, spoke to Jeff DeLuca, founder of Feature Driven Development and an early agile development pioneer, on the background to FDD, Java modelling with colour and transforming large organisations to product thinking.
Why listen to this podcast:
• The first value statement of the Agile Manifesto (Individuals and interactions over processes and tools) is the key to agility, and yet agile is often equated with processes and tools today
• In the traditional, siloed environment, the structure that delivers value (the project) is transient and moving to a NoProjects/product structure results in better outcomes and higher value for the whole organisation
• Aligning KPIs and metrics with business outcomes across the whole cross functional team results in faster problem resolution and better products
• Changing just one part of the organisation can have very detrimental impacts on other parts and can be detrimental overall and needs to be approached with care
• Be wary of salespeople selling silver bullets – there is no easy answer and simple solution to the complex problems organisations face when brining in new ways of working
More on this: Quick scan our curated show notes on InfoQ https://bit.ly/2ASa1bq
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Sep 30, 2019 • 31min
Jeremy Kriegel on Design Innovation and Doc Norton on Tuckman was Wrong
This is the Engineering Culture Podcast, from the people behind InfoQ.com and the QCon conferences.
In this podcast, recorded at the Agile India 2019 conference, Shane Hastie, Lead Editor for Culture & Methods, first spoke to Jeremy Kriegel about design innovation and then with Doc Norton about why Tuckman was wrong and how dynamic reteaming makes organisations more resilient.
Why listen to this podcast:
• Working to bring the design and agile communities together because there is a lot of synergy between and unfortunately there has been a lot of antagonism between practitioners in the two fields
• Agile done well compliments UX and design, however some of the agile anti-patterns have burned UX designers
• UX designers think holistically because customers experience products as complete things, they don’t experience them in pieces and if the product is built in pieces and those pieces don’t form a cohesive whole then the user experience is compromised
• When developers watch someone struggle with their product there’s a dramatic change in the way teams approach their work
More on this: Quick scan our curated show notes on InfoQ https://bit.ly/2nQUi9h
You can also subscribe to the InfoQ newsletter to receive weekly updates on the hottest topics from professional software development. bit.ly/24x3IVq
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Sep 23, 2019 • 26min
Judy Rees on Effective Remote Meetings
This is the Engineering Culture Podcast, from the people behind InfoQ.com and the QCon conferences.
In this podcast Shane Hastie, Lead Editor for Culture & Methods, spoke to Judy Rees about making remote meetings effective, clean language, the series of articles she is curating for InfoQ and the upcoming remote meeting that our listeners/readers are invited to participate in.
Why listen to this podcast:
• Remote meetings and the need for remote collaboration is not new
• Real, interactive, participative meetings and training conducted over video conference is now possible
• When you are in a remote meeting, each person who participates in the meeting brings a part of the meeting room with them
• Quality of conversations matters; if you want high-quality conversations then you need to allow time for human, social interactions
• By having participants turn on their cameras you make the video meeting more compelling than the distractions around the participants
More on this: Quick scan our curated show notes on InfoQ https://bit.ly/2mcbhlt
You can also subscribe to the InfoQ newsletter to receive weekly updates on the hottest topics from professional software development. bit.ly/24x3IVq
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Sep 9, 2019 • 17min
Deborah Hartmann Preuss on Creating Joyful Workplaces
This is the Engineering Culture Podcast, from the people behind InfoQ.com and the QCon conferences.
In this podcast, recorded at the Agile India 2019 conference, Shane Hastie, Lead Editor for Culture & Methods, spoke to Deb Preuss about life coaching, creating joyful workplaces, diversity and inclusion.

Sep 2, 2019 • 25min
Dave Thomas & Andy Hunt on the 20th Anniversary Edition of The Pragmatic Programmer
In this podcast Shane Hastie, Lead Editor for Culture & Methods, spoke to David Thomas and Andrew Hunt about the 20th Anniversary edition of The Pragmatic Programmer.
Why listen to this podcast:
• The importance of curiosity and the mindset of “still figuring it out”
• When you optimize, standardize and make things the same you crush any hope of getting it right
• The real spirit of agility is about constantly monitoring what you are doing, constantly trying small changes and constantly getting feedback
• The 20th Anniversary Edition of The Pragmatic Programmer was updated to be relevant for today’s context
• Software developers are able to write the future – which comes with incredible responsibility
• Software developers have the responsibility to use their best efforts to explore how their software will be used and how they will mitigate the potential bad uses of the products they build
More on this: Quick scan our curated show notes on InfoQ https://bit.ly/2LqaZAD
You can also subscribe to the InfoQ newsletter to receive weekly updates on the hottest topics from professional software development. bit.ly/24x3IVq
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