Welcome to the Fourth Conference of Research Software Engineering, held at the University of Birmingham. For directions to and during the event, see the campus maps page.
In the Aston Webb Building near to the registration/reception desk, a cloakroom is available in room G30 along with a quiet room in G31.
In this interactive workshop we explore how meeting technical objectives depends critically on meeting cultural challenges within teams. Many small teams evolve naturally on a positive path because teams are often formed by friendly collaborators with common interests and goals. But as teams grow they face new challenges, including fragmented time commitments, physically distributed developers, and growing numbers of stakeholders. These challenges make it significantly harder to maintain a healthy team culture. Although agile methodologies and modern software tools can help developers manage these challenges, these processes alone are insufficient. Thus, a growing number of teams are combining these methodologies with techniques that support a passionate and collaborative culture. We explore lightweight progress tracking, informal "tea-time", virtual scrums, human-centered design, empathy building, listening games and exercises. The session is 120 min of guided small group exercises and debriefing, followed by 30 min of large group discussion and 30 min retrospective. We recap lessons learned and explore how culture affects team performance. We focus on skills building in interpersonal communication and inclusion.
