How do you measure and improve the psychological safety of your lean team?

1 What is lean software development?

Lean software development is a set of principles and practices that aim to deliver value to customers faster and with less waste, following the lean manufacturing philosophy of eliminating anything that does not add value. To do this, activities, features, or processes that do not contribute to customer value or satisfaction should be removed. Additionally, experimentation, testing, and learning from feedback can help improve quality and performance. Furthermore, releasing small batches of software frequently and continuously allows for feedback and validation from customers. The team should be given autonomy, responsibility, and authority to make decisions and solve problems. Additionally, the software should be reliable, usable, and meet customer expectations. Lastly, the impact of the software on the entire value stream should be considered instead of individual components or stages.

2 Why is psychological safety important for lean teams?

Psychological safety is essential for lean teams as it enables them to do the behaviors that support the lean principles. For instance, if the team feels psychologically safe, they can experiment and learn from failures without fear of blame or criticism, share ideas and opinions without fear of rejection or ridicule, ask for help and feedback without fear of appearing incompetent or ignorant, challenge assumptions and status quo without fear of retaliation or conflict, and admit mistakes and take responsibility without fear of punishment or shame. These behaviors can help the team to not only improve their processes, products, and outcomes but also their relationships, trust, and morale.

4 How do you improve psychological safety?

Improving psychological safety is not a one-time event, but a continuous process that requires commitment and action from both the team leader and the team members. To create a psychologically safe environment, you can model openness and vulnerability as a leader, create and enforce norms and rules, provide and seek feedback regularly, and celebrate and learn from failures. You can set the tone by sharing your challenges, mistakes, and learnings, inviting feedback, and acknowledging contributions. You can also agree on how to communicate, collaborate, and resolve conflicts in the team. Additionally, you can use feedback tools such as retrospectives or surveys to collect feedback. Finally, you can create a culture of experimentation and learning by encouraging new ideas, testing hypotheses, debriefing failures, recognizing learning and innovation from failures.

5 How do you sustain psychological safety?

Sustaining psychological safety is an ongoing practice that requires tracking and adjustment. To do this, you need to measure and track psychological safety periodically, comparing the results over time and sharing them with your team. Issues and challenges should be addressed as soon as they arise, using conflict resolution and problem-solving techniques. Additionally, you should reinforce and reward psychological safety by acknowledging and appreciating behaviors that support it, giving positive feedback, recognition, and praise. Celebrating successes that result from psychological safety is also important.

6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?