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.

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Ben Linders Consulting
Ben Linders
Psychological Safety in Teams
FlowCon France, Paris, March 6-7 2024

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Ben Linders Consulting
Psychological Safety
a shared belief held by members of a team that the
team is safe for interpersonal risk-taking - Edmondson
 Increases personal engagement and inclusion
 Makes it easier for people to speak up at work
 Fosters learning from failure
How Psychological Safety at Work Creates Effective Software Tech T
InfoQ.com April 2022

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Ben Linders Consulting
Applied for team effectiveness
 Google The five keys to a successful Google team
Psychological safety was by far the most important of the five dynamics
 People can only feel safe challenging the status quo when they feel
included, safe to learn, and safe to contribute
 Leaders can actively nurture a culture of safety by being vulnerable,
reducing human debt, creating incentives and rewarding safe behavior,
and establishing inclusive environments
We cannot have high-performing teams without psychological safety

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Ben Linders Consulting
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 Agile Testing Psychological Safety Culture

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Ben Linders Consulting
Psychological Safety Cards
 Over 60 cards with phrases on psychological safety
 Individual, team, and organizational perspectives
 Facilitate discussions about the values, behavior,
opinions, and beliefs, that underlie psychological safety
 Developed by Ben Linders and Fabio Armani and
reviewed by people from the worldwide agile community
Psychological Safety Cards – Free copy BenLinders@gmail.com

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Ben Linders Consulting
Schedule
14:00 Psychological Safety
14:20 Play – Round 1
14:45 Play – Round 2
15:10 Play – Round 3
15:35 Debrief & Share Learnings
15:50 Ask me Anything
16:00 End

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Ben Linders Consulting
Exercises and Games
Constellation
First things first
Sharing Challenges

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Ben Linders Consulting
Ask me Anything!
Psychological Safety Cards – Free copy BenLinders@gmail.com

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Ben Linders Consulting
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/BenLindersConsulting
www.facebook.com/BenLindersConsulting
www.benlinders.com
www.benlinders.com

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Ben Linders Consulting
How to play games
 Collaborative exercises
 Related to the tech work
 Safe place to play
 Facilitate the interaction
 Reflect and debrief

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Ben Linders Consulting
How people feel about playing games
 People like to play games
 Become their authentic selves
 Engage and encourage people
 Provide different perspectives
 Foster collaboration
 Build relationships
 Visualize what’s happening
 Experiment, safe to fail, take risks