I’m returning to ACE! in 2024 to do a talk and a mini workshop on Psychological Safety: Learn why psychological safety matters and what can be done to explore it and increase safety in your team.

Why Psychological Safety Matters for Software Teams

Psychological safety: some see it as a buzzword of these times. Others view it as out of their world, impossible to reach in the company where they work. It’s a hot topic, and I wonder if people truly understand what makes it so important and what difference it can make.

This talk goes back to the “why” of psychological safety, exploring why it matters and why we should care about psychological safety in software teams (I also proposed a mini-workshop that is about the “what” and “how” of psychological safety). Psychological safety should be a no-brainer for teams to work on, as it lays the foundation for effective collaboration and teamwork.

Teams where people feel safe sometimes aren’t even aware of having it, as it feels like a natural thing. An absence of psychological safety can seriously bring damage to people and impact the team’s performance. In the end, establishing safe teams is the right thing to do, it’s common sense (but not common practice, unfortunately).

In this talk, Ben explores why software teams should care about psychological safety. He will show what can happen when people feel truly safe to raise issues, admit mistakes, ask for help and offer help, take risks, and share any concerns that they may feel. Next, he will dive into the aspects of psychological safety and provide ideas for making it safer at work. Trust and inclusion have strong relationships with psychological safety.

He will share how they relate to each other and how working on one or more of them can benefit the others. In this presentation, He will share his learnings of working in and with teams where people felt psychologically safe. He will also present findings from research that has been done on psychological safety (partly based on what he published on InfoQ: Psychological Safety in Tech Teams).

Fostering Psychological Safety in Agile Teams – Mini Workshop

Psychological safety in teams is important; team members must feel safe and able to communicate and collaborate effectively to deliver value. It’s also necessary to build long-lasting teams since things will happen and relationships will be strained.

But, how safe is a team? How can we determine if there are any factors that make the team unsafe or have an impact on the team’s culture?

In this mini-workshop, we’ll play games for psychological safety and team culture utilizing a deck of coaching cards, The Psychological Safety Cards. We will learn how to use gamification to gain a better understanding of what’s going on in teams. Individuals share what they have learned from working in teams, what has impacted the team’s safety and culture, and what has led to positive change.

Different game formats will be played in groups in parallel. Examples are an ice-breaker to get people talking about psychological safety, a constellation where people take positions about aspects of psychological safety in their team or organization, and collaborative card games where people work together to create an environment that fosters psychological safety.

Here’s an article with more background on psychological safety and some approaches that can be used to apply it: Re-establishing psychological safety in teams. Happy to design new game formats to have people experiment with the concepts and ideas, let me know your thoughts on it?

After playing the game, each group will take time to debrief and reflect on how the game went and what they learned about psychological safety. Next, there’s time for each group to share their learnings with all workshop attendees.

The Psychological Safety Cards have been developed by Ben Linders and Fabio Armani and have been reviewed by people from the worldwide agile community. These cards are available as a downloadable product. Attendees can get a free personal copy of the product on request: Psychological Safety Cards.

ACE! Conference

ACE! is the largest regional conference of its kind in Central Europe, attracting people from all over the region. We’re really excited about the next edition which will combine two tracks: Agile Software Development and Product Design & Management into one conference.

• The Building Software Better track is a great place to learn for Scrum Masters, Agile Coaches, Project & Product Managers, Team Leaders, attendees on the C-level position and everyone engaged in the Product Delivery process.
• The Building Better Products track is for everyone involved in creating products, including Product Managers, UI and Interaction Designers, and UX Designers & Researchers.

ACE! 2024:

• In Kraków (Multikino): for those of you who missed the full conference experience and would love to share knowledge & experience with others in person
• Learn with experts: join Agile Coaching Corner, Product & Design Cafe, Open Space sessions and many more
• Make new connections that last: get to know practitioners from all over the world during the Dinner with Stranger