This document discusses creating a more inclusive culture and architectures for tech companies and development teams. It argues that diversity matters for product design because different perspectives can help identify overlooked issues. It provides tips for building an inclusive culture, such as changing meeting norms and finding common ground beyond work. The document also introduces the concept of inclusive architectures, with pillars like defined processes, frameworks, abstractions, mentorship and state machines that can make projects more accessible and sustainable.

1. CREATE A BETTER CULTURE FOR THE TECH
COMMUNITY AND YOUR COMPANY
DIVERSITY, INCLUSIVE
MINDSETS & ARCHITECTURE

2. TRACY LEE
@LADYLEET
Lead, This Dot Labs, JS consulting (Angular, React, Vue, Node, Polymer)
Google Developer Expert, Angular
Microsoft MVP
Community Rel, Node.js @ Node Foundation
RxJS Core Team
Women Techmakers, GDG Silicon Valley & Triangle
Modern Web Podcast

3. DIVERSITY
INCLUSION

4. Why diversity matters in product development
Creating an inclusive culture
Inclusive architectures - a new framework for engineering your team
& projects
Pillars for creating inclusive architectures

5. DIVERSITY
https://www.beyondiversity.com/how-diversity-as-an-idea-is-evolving/

6. “Diversity represents the full spectrum of human
demographic differences -
race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, age,
socio-economic status or disability.”
- Gallup
https://www.gallup.com/workplace/242138/r
equirements-diverse-inclusive-culture.aspx
DIVERSITY

7. “A lot of companies consider lifestyles, personality
characteristics, perspectives, opinions, family
composition, education level or tenure elements of
diversity, too.”
- Gallup
https://www.gallup.com/workplace/242138/r
equirements-diverse-inclusive-culture.aspx
DIVERSITY

8. WHY A DIVERSE
TEAM MATTERS FOR
PRODUCT DESIGN

9. https://www.inc.com/salvador-rodriguez/uber-diversity-fowler.html
https://medium.com/@shellyphu/why-bic-for-her-pens-failed-6d80cde6511

10. https://www.inc.com/salvador-rodriguez/uber-diversity-fowler.html

11. APPLE WATCH EARLY RELEASE
COULD NOT IDENTIFY DARK SKIN
https://www.wareable.com/health-and-wellbeing/skin-science-complex-wearables-4441

12. https://splinternews.com/will-the-apple-watchs-coolest-feature-work-for-people-o-1793846147
WAS
APPLE FAIL
A TEAM
DIVERSITY
PROBLEM?

13. USE STOCK PHOTOS OF TRANS
AND NON-BINARY PEOPLE

14. https://www.inc.com/salvador-rodriguez/uber-diversity-fowler.html
“Would Uber with more
women in technical roles
have built better tools to
protect female users from
instances of sexual attacks
by their drivers?”
- Inc. Magazine

15. DOES DIVERSITY
REALLY AFFECT
THE BOTTOM LINE?

16. https://www.techrepublic.com/article/5-eye-opening-statistics-about-minorities-in-tech/
“Diversity efforts could net IT industry
an extra $400 billion in revenue
each year.”
- Todd Thibodeaux, CompTIA CEO.

17. - Examined data sets for 366 public companies across a range
of industries in Canada, Latin America, UK, and US.
- Companies in top quartile for racial and ethnic diversity are
35% more likely to have financial returns above industry
medians.
- Companies in top quartile for gender diversity are 15%
more likely to have financial returns above industry
medians.
DIVERSITY MATTERS REPORT BY MCKINSEY & COMPANY
https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/organization/our-insights/why-diversity-matters

18. https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2017/06/13/uber-market-share-customer-image-hit-string-scandals/102795024/https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2017/06/13/uber-market-share-customer-image-hit-string-scandals/102795024/
Uber had a 3.5% decrease in market
share between Feb and June
(when Susan Fowler’s post on a
hostile work culture was released)
Lyft’s market share during that same
time had a correlating 3.5%
increase.

19. INCLUSION

20. Inclusion refers to a cultural and environmental
feeling of belonging.
It can be assessed as the extent to which
employees are valued, respected, accepted and
encouraged to fully participate in the
organization.
- Gallup
https://www.gallup.com/workplace
/242138/requirements-diverse-incl
usive-culture.aspxINCLUSION

21. Employees in inclusive environments feel appreciated
for their unique characteristics and are therefore
comfortable sharing their ideas and other aspects of
their true and authentic selves.
- Gallup
https://www.gallup.com/workplac
e/242138/requirements-diverse-i
nclusive-culture.aspxINCLUSION

22. HOW TO BUILD AN
INCLUSIVE CULTURE

23. https://twitter.com/careecodes/status/1113853211964780544

24. https://twitter.com/CindyGross/status/1113645164764041216

25. https://twitter.com/Judith_IP/status/1113475033400324096

26. 1. Bounce an idea off of someone unexpected.
2. Change up your environment.
3. Rotate who runs your meetings.
4. Leave your assumptions at the door.
5. Talk about something other than work.
https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/10055-create-inclusive-workplace-culture.html
QUICK TIPS

27. https://twitter.com/betterallies/status/948931752197685248

28. HOW TO CREATE
INCLUSIVE
ARCHITECTURES

29. WHAT DOES
INCLUSIVE
ARCHITECTURE
ENABLE?
● Less project maintenance
● Less overall stress
● More cooperation
● Lower cost of developers
● Lower cost of project
● Greater diversity

30. THE NEW PIPELINE
“Faster and cheaper education models like
coding boot camps have tremendous
potential to diversify competitive
workforces.”
- Ryan Craig, author and investor
https://theundercoverrecruiter.com/bootcamp-grads-diversity/

31. THE NEW PIPELINE - BOOTCAMPS
Coding Bootcamps
43% women
25% black/latino
https://theundercoverrecruiter.com/bootcamp-grads-diversity/
Course Report 2016 demographic study of U.S. bootcamps
University CS Majors
15% women
10% black/latino

32. Reasons why:
● Poor onboarding documentation
● Rely on individual excellence
● Rise of the rockstar a$$hole
● No review or mentorship

33. Why this hurts seniors too:
● Harder to onboard and hire
● “Hit by a bus” fears
● Lack of advancement & stagnant
development

34. WHAT YOUR
PROJECT COULD BE
WITH AN
INCLUSIVE VISION

35. Success is person-independent, but team-dependent
Constant stream of developers across the spectrum of
experience
Less burnout, less panic hiring, more seasonal hiring
More innovation, more excitement, more learning
THE INCLUSIVE VISION

36. PILLARS FOR
CREATING
INCLUSIVE
ARCHITECTURES

37. PROCESS

39. ● Clear expectations
● Greater team buy-in and cooperations
● No single-points-of-failure
● Less stress during the crazy
● Reduced conflicts and fewer power struggles
THE BENEFITS OF
PROCESS DONE RIGHT

40. 1. Define Expectations
2. Describe How To Meet Expectations
3. Verify Expectations Are Met
4. Record Results
5. Review Accomplishments Against Expectations
WHAT IS PROCESS?

41. What needs to be done?
Who will do those things?
How should it be done?
When should it be done?
HOW TO CREATE PLANS

42. DEFINING PURPOSE

44. DEFINING RESOLUTIONS

45. ● Minimize errors
● Teach new team members
● Reduce cognitive load
CREATE CHECKLISTS

46. FRAMEWORKS

47. Web development is hard!
Performance
Security
Accessibility
Responsive Design
Progressive Enhancement
Browser Compatibility
Progressive Web Apps

48. Web development is hard!
Performance
Security
Accessibility
Responsive Design
Progressive Enhancement
Browser Compatibility
Progressive Web Apps

49. Frameworks can help!
They make it easy to do the right thing.

50. QUICK START DEVELOPMENT -
CLIS FTW!

51. ● Scaffolding a new project
● Zero-config environment
● Smart defaults
● Out of the box performance using
automatic differential serving,
lazy loading, tree shaking, AoT
compilation
● Actively maintained and kept
up-to-date with core libraries
CLIS FTW!
● Reduce the risk of defects due to
out-of-date or misconfigured
technologies
● Easy migration between major
versions of libraries
● Documentation readily available
● Low risk - ejecting always a
possibility

52. ABSTRACTIONS

53. Separating Concerns allow for a more inclusive codebase
Isolate Business Logic and Complicated Integration Interfaces
(data layer, synchronization, real time communications, etc)
from Presentation Layer
(user stories, UI, etc.)
ABSTRACTIONS

54. Use state management solutions to expose a set of operations but
obscure away the complicated stuff
ABSTRACTIONS

55. STATE MACHINES

57. Use Design Systems/Component Libraries
Don’t have to do custom HTML/CSS on every page.
- Material Design (Angular, React, Preact, Ember, Vue)
ReachUI - A11Y focused component library
Polaris - Shopify’s design system
ABSTRACTIONS

58. MENTORSHIP

59. ● Embrace constant renewal of your workforce
● Mentor others into your position so you get
promoted
GET PROMOTED BY HELPING
SOMEONE TAKE YOUR JOB

60. ● Mentorship starts at the top
● Fully onboard juniors
● Give them more than just docs and CSS tasks
● Get out of fire mode, think holistically
INCLUSIVE PROJECT
MANAGEMENT

61. ● Creating a culture of teaching
● Tech Talks
● Explaining a concept teaches you the concept WAY better
● What are the roles of seniors and how to readjust the
responsibilities to support new developers
● Don’t be a 10x dev, make 10 others 2x as good
SHIFTING THE ROLE
OF THE SENIOR DEV

62. ● Career development
● Professional Instruction (Code Review,
Requirements, etc)
● Soft Skills
● Technical Challenges
● Radical Candor Feedback
EXAMPLES OF MENTORSHIP

63. Why diversity matters in product development
Creating an inclusive culture
Inclusive architectures - a new framework for engineering your team
& projects
Pillars for creating inclusive architectures

64. www.thisdot.co/labs
tracy@thisdot.co
@ladyleet

65. hi@thisdot.co
THANK YOU!