Description:

There is so much discussion these days about culture - about the importance of good organizational culture to the success of companies. The cost of recruiting and retaining top talent is increasing. The opportunity costs incurred when a good employee leaves or during the time it takes to hire quality people are also increasing with the faster speed at which companies are innovating and delivering products to the market. These are a couple of reasons forward looking companies are starting to invest in fostering their organizational cultures – it is less desirable to leave and easier to attract great people. This talk tries to inject some substance into the conversation with real-world examples of some successes and failures in trying to create and maintain a dynamic, get-stuff-done culture and why it is important. You may recognize challenges you have faced or be more prepared when you encounter them. I will cover why culture is so important, especially nowadays in a knowledge worker, “smart creatives” dominated economy. I will talk about what culture is and is not and ways to foster good culture within the workplace and, of course, give some examples of how to damage it. Key areas around HR and team practices will be covered. The ultimate goal of this talk is to further our collective journey of continuous learning and to make our workplaces a more humane (and fun) place for us to spend our days.

Learning Outcomes

·      A better understanding of what culture is and is not

·      Understanding why caring about organizational culture is important, particularly in the knowledge worker economy

·      Some ideas to bring back “home” to try with your team, organization or company to foster a better culture and to communicate why investing in culture has a positive ROI

·      Awareness of red flags and things to look for or avoid in the quest to build a better culture

Presentation History

A version of this talk was delivered as a keynote at Agile Vancouver (BC, Canada), SDEC in Winnipeg (Manitoba, Canada) and Agile Eastern Europe (Kyiv, Ukraine) in 2012 and 2013. The prior version of this talk was focused on experiences within only VersionOne and was more focused breadth with additional discussion around agile practices from a development team perspective. This version of the talk will provide more depth focusing on organizational culture.