[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":795},["ShallowReactive",2],{"/en-us/blog/building-a-handbook-first-remote-learning-culture":3,"navigation-en-us":40,"banner-en-us":439,"footer-en-us":449,"blog-post-authors-en-us-Josh Zimmerman":691,"blog-related-posts-en-us-building-a-handbook-first-remote-learning-culture":705,"assessment-promotions-en-us":746,"next-steps-en-us":785},{"id":4,"title":5,"authorSlugs":6,"body":8,"categorySlug":9,"config":10,"content":14,"description":8,"extension":27,"isFeatured":12,"meta":28,"navigation":29,"path":30,"publishedDate":20,"seo":31,"stem":35,"tagSlugs":36,"__hash__":39},"blogPosts/en-us/blog/building-a-handbook-first-remote-learning-culture.yml","Building A Handbook First Remote Learning Culture",[7],"josh-zimmerman",null,"unfiltered",{"slug":11,"featured":12,"template":13},"building-a-handbook-first-remote-learning-culture",false,"BlogPost",{"title":15,"description":16,"authors":17,"heroImage":19,"date":20,"body":21,"category":9,"tags":22},"Building a Handbook First Remote Learning Culture","An overview on how to build a handbook first remote learning culture",[18],"Josh Zimmerman","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749664102/Blog/Hero%20Images/gitlab-values-cover.png","2020-12-22","\n{::options parse_block_html=\"true\" /}\n\nLearning & Development (L&D) is a vital function of any organization’s People or HR team. When most professionals think of L&D, they may remember sitting in the back of a conference room hearing a corporate trainer deliver slides, or maybe accessing self-paced training once or twice a year, or perhaps taking a survey on how to grow their skills. At GitLab, L&D is a huge priority and we do it differently than most organizations!\n\nSince GitLab is [all-remote](https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/company/culture/all-remote/) and our [Handbook](https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/) is our primary source of learning, you may be asking yourself, how does L&D create and reinforce a remote learning culture?\n\n[GitLab’s Handbook](https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/) is over 8,000 pages long, and it grows every day. We consider each page to be a source of learning & development material. Pages are for training new team members on GitLab processes, culture, ways of working, and much more. The Handbook is publicly available worldwide, and anyone can [learn about GitLab's Remote working culture](https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/company/culture/all-remote/building-culture/) and [DevOps](/topics/devops/). It’s a ton to digest, and from a learning perspective, the text-based format can lean heavily on reading and video. For GitLab to scale L&D, we need to make our Handbook more consumable where it is easy to learn new things!\n\nI joined GitLab eight months ago from management consulting to help build a learning culture. It’s an exciting opportunity. Our team is growing fast. We deliver more resources to the community, and we are helping team members learn more by introducing new handbook first learning modalities. I wanted to share my thoughts on some of the biggest takeaways on building a handbook first remote learning culture. Consider these ingredients to scaling L&D:\n\n## Build a Learning Infrastructure\n\nGitLab’s Handbook is our primary source of training material. Every piece of content pulls from the handbook. As GitLab continues to grow, we needed to invest in a learning technology infrastructure that can enable personalized/self-service learning. By taking material in the handbook, we can apply a [level of interactivity](https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/people-group/learning-and-development/level-up/legacy/) to allow various learning styles to consume bite-sized content. We recently invested in a [Learning Experience Platform (LXP)](https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/people-group/learning-and-development/#gitlab-learn-edcast-learning-experience-platform-lxp) by [EdCast](https://gitlab.edcast.com/log_in?auto_sso=true) that will significantly improve our ability to provide certifications, assessments, and self-service learning.\n\nWe also invested in a content library from LinkedIn Learning for off-the-shelf content. Team members will have access to the library for courses that can supplement GitLab’s customized learning content. There's also our use of Articulate 360, which we use to [build interactive handbook first courses](https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/people-group/learning-and-development/level-up/legacy/) in the LXP.\n\nThe L&D team has pursued various certification programs that complement our values, such as [Tracom Corporations Social Styles](https://tracom.com/social-style-training/model) facilitator and [Crucial Conversations certification from VitalSmarts](https://www.vitalsmarts.com/crucial-conversations-training/). Our plan is to equip the L&D team with as many tools to design and deliver scalable training. By continuing to invest in learning technologies, we want our team members to know that growing your skills is a top priority for the future of GitLab.\n\n## Design Social Learning Experiences\n\nRemote work can have [some drawbacks](https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/company/culture/all-remote/drawbacks/). One of those challenges may be a lack of connection with your coworkers. GitLab L&D uses our live learning courses as an opportunity to build relationships and a sense of community with team members. There may not be a lot of forums outside of [coffee chats](https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/company/culture/all-remote/informal-communication/#coffee-chats), [AMAs](https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/communication/ask-me-anything/), [group conversations](https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/communication/ask-me-anything/), or [1-1 meetings](https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/leadership/1-1/) where team members can **Learn From Others**. We have started to adapt our [live learnings](https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/people-group/learning-and-development/#live-learning) to serve as networking activities where team members work on scenarios in small groups, get to know one another, and share lessons learned. We’ve noticed increased engagement across learners and an atmosphere of encouraging collaboration. Social Learning is the cornerstone of how we will design learning experiences. We can’t expect participants to pay attention to slides for 25 to 50-minute sessions, so we decided to throw out most of them! Team members want to network and build connections during sessions. Why not use learning as a forum to do just that?\n\n## Prioritize Leadership Buy-In and Sponsorship.\n\nGitLab’s CEO, Sid, is very passionate about L&D. He wants to be part of our learning initiatives and share knowledge from his experience growing the organization. Sid has partnered with L&D on recording interviews and [advocating for up-leveling our handbook first learning content](https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/people-group/learning-and-development/#handbook-first-training-content). In order to scale, we receive executive support from Sid and the rest of the e-group on essential initiatives. Our leadership is behind us. Without their support for learning, it would be difficult for L&D to grow and show our people we are invested in them.\n\n## Change Management for Learning & Development\n\nAsking team members to [take time out to learn new skills](https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/organizational-change-management/) takes time and energy. Everyone at GitLab is incredibly busy, and carving out time to reskill, and upskill requires a proactive approach. We use GitLab communication vehicles such as Slack channels and Issues to spread various [learning initiatives](https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/people-group/learning-and-development/learning-initiatives/). With the introduction of new tools, technology, initiatives, and courses, L&D has to conduct [continuous change management](https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/organizational-change-management/#introduction) with a heavy focus on communications and enablement. Some of those methods include a [monthly continuous learning call](https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/people-group/learning-and-development/learning-initiatives/#monthly-continuous-learning-call-overview) and quarterly newsletter, where we highlight what’s happening in the L&D space.\n\n## Focus on Developing your Leaders\n\nOne of my first initiatives at GitLab was developing a [manager enablement program](https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/leadership/). The program’s focus is to reinforce behaviors through a set period of time, 3 weeks, to train our leaders on remote management practices. We applied neuroscience techniques so that participants can learn at their own pace through positive engagement and social learning. We also recognized that learners might have various attention span ranges, so why not create a program that allows participants to complete activities through [daily challenges](https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/leadership/#week-1) that take 20 minutes to complete. The program is bite-sized, blended for different learning styles, flexible, and engaging with the focus on equipping managers with critical skills.\n\nBy focusing on managers as a key priority for L&D, we were able to pilot a program and iterate on future deliveries rapidly. We now have a group of managers who are learning ambassadors that can advocate for learning initiatives in the future.\n\n## Reinforce GitLab Values\n\n[C.R.E.D.I.T.](https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/values/#credit) is the acronym GitLab uses for our six values. One way for us to reinforce our values is by threading them throughout our curriculum design and development. The values serve as the cornerstone to how GitLab operates as a Remote organization. I’m lucky to work for an organization that takes them so seriously, and it makes my job as an L&D professional easier. By rooting learning in our values, we can reinforce behaviors.\n\n## Prove L&D is a high-value organization\n\nL&D is a relatively new organization within GitLab. Our team considers ourselves strategic enablers. We are striving to develop a mindset that feels responsible for driving strategy and leading change. Think bigger and broader by being proactive in understanding GitLab’s goals, methods, and operations. We have a goal to align every aspect of L&D with the rest of the company. By piloting and [iterating new initiatives](https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/people-group/learning-and-development/learning-initiatives/), we let the organization know that we are here to enable behavioral change that directly increases results!\n\nWe have a colossal charter set out for us in L&D. But with the strong encouragement from our leadership, we know that building a handbook first remote learning culture is top of mind. Hopefully, some of the points outlined in this blog will equip you with a few tips on building a learning culture within your organization.\n\nTo learn more, check out our handbook page, [GitLab Learning and Development](https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/people-group/learning-and-development/), or contact learning@gitlab.com to speak with a member of our team.\n",[23,24,25,26],"collaboration","inside GitLab","remote 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Program.",[711],"Jacie Bandur","2021-05-18","\n\n{::options parse_block_html=\"true\" /}\n\n\nHi! I’m Jacie Bandur. I completed GitLab’s CEO Shadow program from 2021-04-26 through 2021-05-07. It was a really enlightening experience. I generally work in Learning and Development and consider myself a lifelong learner. I can’t even explain how much I learned in such a short about of time. I learned a lot about the business. I learned a lot about the product. But learned even more about the importance of iteration in everything we do.\n\n### Qualifications to Participate\n\nI wanted to start this off with touching on qualifications to participate in the program.\n\nI am the type of person that has gone through most of my life thinking I’m not qualified for things. I’m not qualified for that job, that promotion, that program. The list goes on and on.\n\nWhen I saw the [CEO Shadow program](/blog/ceo-shadow-impressions-takeaways/) kick off in 2019, I really wanted to participate. I was a little intimidated. Who wouldn’t be, spending 2 weeks with the CEO of any company? But time passed and all the sudden it was 2021 and I had not taken any steps to participating in the program.\n\nIf you are sitting there waiting for someone to tell you that you are qualified to participate in this program, I’m not big on giving “pep talks,” but here’s me telling you - You are qualified for this program. There’s never going to be a good or perfect time to do it. Tell your manager you want to do the CEO Shadow program. Stop waiting. Sign up today.\n\nNote: Take a look at the [eligibility](https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/ceo/shadow/#eligibility) section of the CEO Shadow page for more information on signing up.\n\n### Pre-Program Tips\n\nThere are many things recommended for shadows to do pre-program outlined on the CEO Shadow handbook page. As I was going through the program there were things that I thought helped me (or would have helped me).\n\nHere are my top 6 recommendations:\n\n1. Make sure your team knows you will be unavailable for 2 weeks. This isn’t a program that can or should be done alongside your normal day to day work. I found catching up from the 2 weeks away kind of difficult because I was trying to keep up on what was going on and I had a bunch of half done things.\n1. Talk with people who have done the shadow program - schedule at least 3 coffee chats with CEO Shadow Alumni.\n1. Have food that is easy to eat quickly. Sid’s meetings are back to back most days, so you will have small amounts of time to eat throughout the day. Sid does eat during calls, which you are welcome to do, too, but if you are taking notes, it is difficult to eat. And this will make you realize why speedy meetings are so important!\n1. Listen to the [Executive Leadership LinkedIn Learning course](https://www.linkedin.com/learning/executive-leadership/).\n1. Be prepared to ask questions. When doing the program virtually, there isn’t a ton of time for asking questions, so when one would come up, I would add it to a note on my computer and ask if there was ever time with just the shadows and Sid.\n1. Take at least 1 day off after the program. Take even a couple of days off if you can! This is recommended on the handbook page, but I can’t stress this enough.\n\n\n### Takeaways\n\n**Group Conversations**\n\nI’ve been at GitLab for almost 4 years. When I joined, I made it a point to attend as many GC’s as I could. I had gotten out of the habit of attending Group Conversations. After attending them again for 2 weeks, I realized how important they are to understand better what is going on across the business. Everything in the organization is so intertwined. It’s helpful to understand what other teams are working on and succeeding in.\n\n**Feedback**\n\nWe should all be giving and receiving feedback often. We have a whole [handbook page on giving and receiving feedback](https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/people-group/guidance-on-feedback/). Read the handbook page and watch the videos, as well. Practice giving feedback. I recommend using the [1-1 agenda](https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/leadership/1-1/suggested-agenda-format/) Sid uses, because Feedback is an essential piece of that agenda, and it makes feedback more of a routine thing.\n\n**Biggest Takeaway**\n\nWe have an incredible team here at GitLab, from Engineering to Product to Sales to People and all the groups in between. There are so many great ideas. I observed the constant reinforcement by Sid to start with something small and build on it. You can ALWAYS make something more complex. It’s hard to go back to something more simple when you start with something complex.\n\nA couple of quotes that I heard from Sid during the program that reinforced this point:\n\n- “Every complex system evolves from a simple system that worked.”\n- “It’s very clear what is the simple solution. We can always make it more complicated as we go on.”\n\nI know they are very similar, but they happened in different meetings on different days, so the point was reinforced repeatedly.\n\nDuring the program, I reflected on the projects that I’am working on. How many of them am I trying to do too much on before releasing. Probably all of them. When I’m working on projects in the future, I will break them down into smaller, more doable chunks. Iteration is hard - it’s a skill to be practicing constantly.\n\n\n### Overall\n\nOverall, the program was really insightful and impactful. If you haven’t participated in it yet, I cannot encourage you enough to do so!\n",{"slug":715,"featured":12,"template":13},"ceo-shadow-recap",{"content":717,"config":729},{"title":718,"description":719,"authors":720,"heroImage":722,"date":723,"body":724,"category":9,"tags":725},"Why I love contributing to GitLab","Making small meaningful changes is what it's all about.",[721],"Austin Regnery","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749679501/Blog/Hero%20Images/new-feature.png","2021-05-11","It was mid-morning on a Tuesday in February, and I had 10 minutes in between meetings. So I decided to try and solve a pain point of mine.\nYou see, I had to memorize this HTML snippet to create a collapsible section in GitLab Issue descriptions and comments, but I kept forgetting it. Was it `summary` or `section`? I could never remember.\n```html\n\u003Cdetails>\n\u003Csummary>Insert Title\u003C/summary>\nHidden content\n\u003C/details>\n```\nEven though it is not vanilla Markdown, GitLab knows how to interpret some HTML. I used this formatting trick fairly often since full-page screenshots can occupy a lot of screen space, which leads to excessive scrolling.\nSo I decided to poke around our codebase to see how the other Markdown shortcuts worked. To my surprise, it was pretty straightforward. Each shortcut had a simple text input that mapped to each button. This implementation was simple to replicate since I just needed to copy/paste and replace a few words.\n![Image of Vue and Haml files with editor shortcuts](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/why-i-love-contributing-to-gitlab/vue-haml.png){: .shadow}\nThe Vue and Haml files with the new shortcut\n\nI started a branch and began hacking away at the code. Now, I would never call myself a Software Engineer, but I like to try and make things from time to time. I was able to add a new shortcut to the toolbar to insert this code snippet for me in less than 10 minutes. No more memorizing! Making contributions like this is what makes working at GitLab so special.\nNow, it wasn't ready for production, but I at least had something that worked. I shared it with my UX colleagues in Slack, and it started to gain traction with several up-votes and few constructive comments on how to make it better.\nWith the functionality flushed out, a few other designers helped me get a better icon added to our SVG library. Using clear iconography is critical for communicating information more clearly.\n| Initial Icon | Final Icon |\n| - | - |\n| ![SVG of chevron right icon](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/why-i-love-contributing-to-gitlab/chevron-right.svg) | ![SVG of details block icon](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/why-i-love-contributing-to-gitlab/details-block.svg) |\n\nThe last thing to do was resolve my failing tests, and I had several teammates help me do that.\n![Gif of the shortcut being used](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/why-i-love-contributing-to-gitlab/demo.gif)\n\nToday [this change](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/merge_requests/54938) merged! Now I solved a pain point for me and others. It took a few months to go from idea to production, but the effort was super low. I'd say the return on my initial investment, 10 minutes, is super high.\n> Having a direct impact on a product was never an option for me before joining GitLab.\n\n![Image of participants in the Merge Request](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/why-i-love-contributing-to-gitlab/participants.png)\n\n\nThank you to everyone that helped me deploy this\n",[726,727,728],"UX","product","AWS",{"slug":730,"featured":12,"template":13},"why-i-love-contributing-to-gitlab",{"content":732,"config":744},{"title":733,"description":734,"authors":735,"heroImage":737,"date":723,"body":738,"category":9,"tags":739},"Placebo Lines on the Pipeline Graph","Have you noticed the connecting lines missing on your pipelines lately? Here's why",[736],"Sam Beckham","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749679507/Blog/Hero%20Images/ci-cd.png","\n\n{::options parse_block_html=\"true\" /}\n\n\n\nHave you ever pressed the close door button on the elevator, in the hope that you'll save a few precious seconds?\nOr got frustrated at the person stood next to you at the cross-walk, neglecting to press the button?\nWell, maybe they know something you don't, or perhaps you know this already.\nMany buttons in our society lie to us.\n[David McRaney](https://youarenotsosmart.com/2010/02/10/placebo-buttons/) dubbed these, \"Placebo buttons\" and they're everywhere.\nThose elevator doors won't close any faster and the cross-walk button has no effect on the lights.\nThe only lights they control are the lights on the buttons themselves.\nThey give you the feedback you crave, but that's all they're doing.\n\nThese placebos aren't constrained to the physical world, they're prevalent in [UI design](/blog/the-evolution-of-ux-at-gitlab/) too.\nFrom literal placebo buttons like [YouTube's downvote](https://www.quora.com/Does-downvoting-a-comment-on-YouTube-even-do-anything), to more subtle effects like Instagram always [pretending to work](https://www.fastcompany.com/1669788/the-3-white-lies-behind-instagrams-lightning-speed), or progress bars that have a [fixed animation](https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/02/why-some-apps-use-fake-progress-bars/517233/).\nThey're everywhere if you know where to look.\n\nAt GitLab, we created a placebo of our own in one of our core features; the pipeline graph.\n\nThose of you who have used our pipeline graph, will be familiar with its appearance.\nThere's a series of jobs, grouped by stages, connected by a series of lines depicting the relationships between the jobs.\nBut these lines might be lying to you.\nThese lines are indiscriminately drawn between each job in a stage, regardless of their relationship.\nThese lines are placebos.\n\n![The old pipeline rendering with lines connecting every job in a stage](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/placebo-lines_old-graph.png)\n\nThis wasn't a problem to begin with.\nA basic pipeline has several jobs across a handful of stages.\nJobs in each stage would run parallel to each other, but each stage would run sequentially.\nIn the image shown above, all the jobs in the test stage would trigger at the same time. Once those jobs had finished, all the jobs in the build stage would trigger.\nWe used rudimentary CSS to draw lines connecting each job in one stage to each job in the next.\nThese lines weren't calculated based on their connections, but still reflected the story they were telling.\n\nSince the introduction of `needs` relationships in [v12.2](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-foss/-/issues/47063), pipelines got a bit more complicated.\nNow you could configure a job in a later stage to trigger as soon as a job in an earlier stage completed.\nLooking at our old example, we could set the API deployment to run as soon as our spec tests passed.\nThis skips the remaining tests and the entire build stage, turning our lines into pretty little liars.\n\nWe had many internal discussions about these lines, and how to show the relationships between jobs.\nThere's the [`needs` visualization](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/ci/directed_acyclic_graph/#needs-visualization), which does an excellent job of displaying these relationships, but the main pipeline graph was still inaccurate.\nFor the past few months, we've been [refactoring the pipeline graph](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/276949), giving it a new lease of life and fixing some of its issues along the way.\nOne of those issues were the faked lines.\nIn the new version, we can accurately draw lines between jobs.\nLines that actually depict the relationships jobs have with each other.\nNow the lines no-longer lie!\n\n![The newer pipeline graph showing the correct needs links between jobs](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/placebo-lines_new-graph.png)\n\nThe above image shows an unreleased version of the pipeline graph.\nYou can see the lines drawn between the jobs to show that the `deploy:API` job can start as soon as the `rspec` job is successful.\nSomething the old lines (shown earlier in this post) would have been unable to depict.\n\nOne unfortunate downside of this is that these lines can be quite expensive to calculate.\nThey're actual DOM nodes, drawn deliberately and placed precisely.\nOn smaller graphs this isn't a problem, but some of our initial tests have found pipelines with a potential 8000+ job connections.\nThat kind of calculation would grind the browser to a halt, and nobody wants that.\n\nAt GitLab, we believe in boring solutions.\nWe make the simple change that sets us on the path towards where we want to be.\nShip it, get feedback, and iterate.\nSo that's what we did.\nIn the first phase of this rollout, we shipped the new pipeline graph with no lines connecting the jobs.\nWe don't have to worry about the expensive calculations, and we still get to roll out the refactored pipeline graph.\n\n![The current (v13.11) pipeline graph showing no links between jobs](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/placebo-lines_current-graph.png)\n\nWe know some of you will miss them, but fear not.\nBoring solutions are just technical debt if you don't iterate on them.\nSo the [improved lines are coming](https://gitlab.com/groups/gitlab-org/-/epics/4509) in a future release, along with several other improvements to the pipeline graph.\nWe're already starting to roll out the new [Job Dependencies](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/298973) view which shows the jobs in a (much closer to) execution order.\nStay tuned for more updates, and watch [Sarah Groff Hennigh Palermo's talk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2EKqKjB7OQ) for the technical side of this effort and a deeper dive into some of the decisions we made.\n",[740,741,742,743],"CI","frontend","agile","design",{"slug":745,"featured":12,"template":13},"placebo-lines-on-the-pipeline-graph",{"promotions":747},[748,762,773],{"id":749,"categories":750,"header":752,"text":753,"button":754,"image":759},"ai-modernization",[751],"ai-ml","Is AI achieving its promise at scale?","Quiz will take 5 minutes or less",{"text":755,"config":756},"Get your AI maturity 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