Blameless Postmortems: The Secret to Better Engineering Teams | Episode 17

A critical incident hits. Systems go down. Deadlines slip. Fingers point. Sound familiar?

In this episode, Duncan and Jason break down how high-performing engineering teams recover differently. Instead of assigning blame, they focus on learning, adapting, and improving.

Through stories and insights, they explore how leadership sets the tone for accountability, why feedback loops are essential for growth, and how creating psychological safety helps engineers move faster without fear.

If you’ve ever been in the middle of a postmortem wondering how to make your team stronger, this conversation will change the way you think about engineering culture.

Top Takeaways:

• Building a resilient engineering culture requires overcoming fear and blame.
• Incident responses reveal the underlying culture of an organization.
• Blameless postmortems focus on accountability, not punishment.
• Leaders must model accountability to foster a healthy culture.
• Creating a culture of trust involves open communication and vulnerability.
• Accountability should be balanced with support and understanding.
• Influencing culture starts with individual actions and leadership.
• Navigating niceness in leadership requires setting clear expectations.
• High standards lead to better team dynamics and accountability.
• Low accountability results in wasted resources and ineffective teams.

Connect with us:

Duncan Mapes

Jason Ehmke

DevGrid.io

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