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Standard : Psychological safety is measured and actively improved

Purpose and Strategic Importance

This standard ensures psychological safety is not only valued but actively measured and improved. It empowers teams to speak up, take risks, and collaborate without fear-foundations for innovation and high performance.

Aligned to our "Psychological Safety First" policy, this standard turns culture into a conscious practice. Without it, fear goes unspoken, feedback is suppressed, and team potential is limited.

Strategic Impact

Clearly defined impacts of meeting this standard include improved delivery flow, reduced risk, higher system resilience, and better alignment to business needs. Over time, teams will see reduced rework, faster time to value, and stronger system integrity.

Risks of Not Having This Standard

  • Reduced ability to respond to change or failure
  • Accumulation of technical debt or friction
  • Poor developer experience and morale
  • Decreased confidence in releases and features
  • Misalignment between technical implementation and business priorities

CMMI Maturity Model

  • Level 1 – Initial: Psychological safety is not discussed or assessed.

  • Level 2 – Managed: Teams occasionally discuss safety, but actions are limited.

  • Level 3 – Defined: Regular assessments are held and safety practices are integrated into team rituals.

  • Level 4 – Quantitatively Managed: Data is used to track safety trends and guide interventions.

  • Level 5 – Optimising: Safety is embedded in culture and leadership, continuously refined through team feedback.


Key Measures

  • Adoption metrics relevant to the standard (to be defined)
  • Quality, throughput, and system health metrics aligned to capability
  • Maturity scores based on structured assessment
Associated Policies
  • Psychological Safety First
  • Measure & Validate Value
  • Post-Incident Learning Culture
Associated Practices
  • Collaborative Story Refinement
  • Engineering Onboarding Playbooks
  • Guilds & Chapters
  • Dev-Product Pairing
  • Engineering Office Hours
  • Mob Programming
  • Pair Programming
  • Psychological Safety Practices
  • Retrospective Action Loops
  • Shared Learning Days
  • Swarming on Issues
  • Tech Talks & Showcases
Associated Measures
  • Developer Satisfaction (DevEx NPS)

Technical debt is like junk food - easy now, painful later.

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