Psychological safety in teams is important; it is necessary for the team to be able to communicate and collaborate effectively in order to deliver value. It's also necessary to build long-lasting teams since things will happen and relationships will be strained; team members must be informed of what's going on in the team and feel comfortable dealing with it. 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 a game for psychological safety and team culture utilizing a deck of coaching cards. We will learn how to use gamification to gain a better understanding of what's going on in teams. Individuals can share what they have learned from working in teams, how it impacted the team's safety and culture, and what led to positive change. We'll use a Jamboard for the game, so you will need a Google account to join the Jamboard. All participants will receive a code along with a discount for buying the cards.

1. @BenLinders 1
Ben Linders
Increasing Psychological Safety in Agile Team
Increasing Psychological Safety in Agile Teams
Agile Humans meetup – March 3, 2022

2. @BenLinders 2
• Trainer / Coach / Adviser / Author / Speaker
• Agile, Lean, Quality & Continuous improvement
• Freelance Editor for InfoQ.com
BenLinders.com
Books: Valuable Agile Retrospectives Problem? What Problem?
What Drives Quality Self-assessments Continuous Improvement
Games: Agile Self-assessment Game Retrospectives Bingo Impediments
Quality Coaching Cards Agile Testing Cards

3. @BenLinders 3
Safety Check
How safe do you feel to actively participate in this meetup?
5: No problem, I’ll talk about anything.
4: I’ll talk about almost anything; a few things might be hard.
3: I’ll talk about some things, but others will be hard to say.
2: I’m not going to say much; I’ll let others bring up issues.
1: I’m not going to talk at all, I don’t feel safe.
Safety check

4. @BenLinders
Let’s check how safe we feel

5. @BenLinders
Psychological Safety
Psychological safety is a shared belief that an
environment is safe for interpersonal risk
Amy C. Edmondson, Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management at the Harvard Business School
 Increase personal engagement and makes it easier to speak up
 Team members feel safe to take risks, admit mistakes, discuss conflicts
 Environment where people share ideas, experiment, ask for feedback

6. @BenLinders
Increasing Psychological Safety
 Raise awareness, encourage discussions
 Do retrospectives, reflect to create share insights and learn
 Play (serious) games, encourage self-assessments
 Build trust by being transparent
 Foster DEI: Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion
 Lead with empathy, listen, be curious
 Be authentic, and vulnerable
You can’t make people feel safe…
but you can make it safer for people

7. @BenLinders
Let’s play with the cards

8. @BenLinders 8
Key Takeaways
 Psychological safety is a shared belief that an environment is safe
for interpersonal risk
 Gamification provides a safe-to-fail environment where teams can
explore, experiment, and learn
 You can’t make people feel safe, but you can make it safer for
people to communicate and collaborate

9. @BenLinders 9
Links
Psychological Safety Cards benlinders.com/shop/psychological-
safety-cards/
Discount for meetup attendees benlinders.com/agilehumans/
Agile Coaching Tools benlinders.com/downloads/
Agile Self-assessments benlinders.com/agile-self-assessments/

10. @BenLinders
Ask me Anything!
Free Lifetime Support (email): benlinders.com/fls
benlinders.com - @BenLinders 10

11. @BenLinders 11
Thank you!
Thank you!
Ben Linders
Trainer / Coach / Adviser / Author / Speaker
Agile, Lean, Quality & Continuous Improvement
info@BenLinders.com
info@BenLinders.com
@BenLinders
www.linkedin.com/in/benlinders
www.linkedin.com/in/benlinders
www.facebook.com/BenLindersAdvies
www.facebook.com/BenLindersAdvies
www.benlinders.com
www.benlinders.com

12. @BenLinders 12
Gamification
• Applying principles and practices from
gaming in a non-gaming context
 Solving problems/challenges together,
 Share stories, travel journeys
 Progression or emerge structure
Enabling Improvement

13. @BenLinders 13
What can gamification bring?
 People like to play games
 Encourages and involves people
 Provides different perspectives
 Stimulates collaboration
 Builds relationships
 Visualizes what’s happening
 Establishes safety to fail and learn