Blameless culture

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Photo by krakenimages on Unsplash

Background

Mistakes are inevitable in any project, especially when it comes to complex software projects. However, the way we respond to those mistakes can make or break the motivation and productivity of our teams. This post discusses how fostering a blameless culture can enhance team productivity.

What is a Blameless Culture?

Have you ever heard of teams where individuals blame each other when a product release is delayed? Or perhaps, unfortunately, worked with such teams? It is quite disheartening to be part of a team where such inefficiencies outweigh productive work. A few reasons why this happens are:

If managers do not invest sufficient time in designing a system that promotes transparency,
Or when most of the team members encourage the blame-game, and no one steps up to highlight that this approach harms team motivation,
Or where it is normal to delay releases or shift responsibilities, rather than maintaining clarity.

The above is exactly opposite of how Blameless culture looks like. In a Blameless culture, we emphasize on learning and improving but without pointing fingers. So when a mistake happens, the focus is on analysing the root cause and fixing it. In such a culture, people are open to communicate and accept their mistakes rather than hiding them or shifting blames.

Role of processes

Let’s say you work in a startup with less than 10 people. There are high chances that you won’t have a process defined for anything. So if you are working in the leadership team and someone comes and asks for a leave, or wants to get their laptop repaired, or needs a comfortable chair — you will need to define a process for them. On the contrary, in a large organisation you will see a process and budget defined for almost everything. While processes are important for any organisation, startups can’t prioritise defining these processes, as their goal is to get the first few paying customers for their product(s). At the same time, they can’t even inherit the processes from a large company because a lot of those will not make sense for a startup.

As of now, I have over 9 years of industry experience, all in startups (including one at a very early stage). I believe that team members should be open to learning new processes to tackle new challenges. They shouldn’t have a fixed mindset that makes them think in just one way. What worked at your previous company might not work at the next one. So, having an open mindset helps you adapt to the environment and come up with new, specific, and innovative solutions.

Processes in startups evolve as the company grows. For instance, they determine which leave plan is effective and what kind of release schedule works best for their software. The evolution of these processes also addresses many cultural issues. I recall in my previous role, we began to develop a culture of shifting blame to individuals and teams when our product manager inquired “Why is the Android release delayed?”

For the frontend team, it was the QA team that approved the API too late.
For the QA team, it was the backend team whose estimates were off by days or weeks.
For the backend team, it was the product team that didn’t consider all scenarios, leading to changes in the code design after they started building the backend..

We saw this as a chance to improve our processes. It took us 3-4 retrospective meetings to identify what needed improvement. Our open mindset helped us eliminate the wrong culture and address the root cause of our problem. I also wrote a detailed blog post about it many years later.

Culture <> Accountability

Blameless culture doesn’t mean avoiding accountability; it means redefining it. Accountability is about ownership of tasks and outcomes. When an issue arises, the goal is to improve the process and systems that allowed the problem to occur, rather than penalizing the individual (or team) involved. This empowers team members to take responsibility without fear.

Another story I remember is from a recent interaction with a junior colleague in my last role. Both of us were in our notice period at that time. I met them face to face for the first time on their last working day 😅. They were moving to a large investment bank as a Software Engineer. Moving from a startup to a big company that deals with money, they were worried about what would happen if their code caused a loss of real money in production. My shortest answer to them was —

If it’s easy to cause loss of money in their systems, it’s a process problem and not an engineer’s fault. There should be sufficient processes and checks in place to make sure this doesn’t happen very easily.

Similarly, every now and then, I see a meme where an intern claims to accidentally destroy the production database. The problem is not the intern, but the policies that gave them write access to production database 😄.

Founding Team’s Impact

The founding team has a profound impact on a company’s culture and processes, Founders establish the core values that reflect their work ethic and vision, setting the tone for how employees interact, make decisions, and solve problems. Whether intentional or not, the founding team’s leadership style influences the company’s norms — whether it encourages open communication, innovation, or strict hierarchy. I recently interacted with an old friend who works as a Senior Business analyst. They recently changed their job and told that the culture is very poor. In their words:

Our managers do not treat their reportees well. If you don’t answer their Slack messages quickly, they’ll ping others in the team asking, “Where is XYZ person and why aren’t they responding?” It doesn’t matter if the person went to the washroom for five minutes. They expect immediate responses to everything.

When I asked about their skip manager’s behavior, they said, “Everyone is the same here. Skip managers shout at managers, and managers shout at us.” 😿 This shows how a bad culture spreads from top to bottom. Another example is a story shared by The Pragmatic Engineer in their blog. It’s about Stripe’s strong writing culture. Because their CEO and CTO write a lot, it encourages everyone to do the same. As a result, all engineers and managers write long internal documents. I wrote about the impact of the founding team on the rest of the team on my LinkedIn a few months ago:

If you’re an old member of a team, your work is beyond your work profile. One major role is to ensure a positive team culture. Culture propagates in two ways:

1. Vertically (CEO -> Dept leads -> managers -> seniors -> freshers). 2. Horizontally (Among peers / among old and new people).

If there is a blame-game culture in a team of 10 members, then chances are that 11th member will also start doing that, or will leave. On the positive side, if there’s a bar of “high quality” code or processes in a team, then the new member will have to match that in order to survive.

Conclusion

If you work in a team with cultural issues, collaborate with your peers and manager to improve it. If you’re in a startup or a growing team, make sure the culture develops positively. Small habits have a big impact when others follow them, whether good or bad.

Thank you for reading! Have a good day.