I came across a wonderful talk this past week from Carol Lee, PhD from the past LeadDev conference.

Her talk was centered around some important research she and a fellow scientist, Kristen Foster-Marks, conducted about how developers experience code review anxiety.

The TL;DR is that code review anxiety exists among engineers of all levels, and we must develop proper skills to manage it effectively.

They even created a free online workbook to help developers! There are both scientific explanations for the phenomenon of code review anxiety and practical steps you, as an engineer, can take to improve your relationship with it. It really is a great tool.

As someone who cares deeply about helping developers improve their skills and experience with code reviews, I was really excited about this tool. Much of the research resonates with my own experiences and observations about how individual developers can improve the outcomes of their code reviews.

Today, though, I want to zoom out and ask a subtly different question: if code review anxiety is common, what can teams (not just individuals) due to help their entire team thrive in their code review practice?
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Team-Building Exercise

As Carol Lee mentioned in her talk (linked in the post as well), one of the key reasons code review anxiety stays so prominent is that it stays hidden. When anxiety stays hidden, it makes us feel like we are the only ones experiencing it.
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This week, find a time to discuss it with your team. This might be a retrospective or maybe even just a Slack thread where you say, "Hey, I'm wondering: Are there people on our team feeling anxious to open or review a pull request?" What could we do to improve that if so?"

Another tactic that could work is hosting a Lunch'n'Learn time to discuss some best practices around code reviews and normalize the feeling of anxiety in that forum. I've done this before, and it worked out rather well!

A small misstep to avoid here: don't start singling people out just yet. If someone feels anxiety and you, though with good intent, start asking, "Do I make you anxious?" if they do feel that way, you will just be increasing your anxiety. Start with a general forum and then move to direct feedback conversations afterward. Once the experience has been normalized, the conversation will be more approachable in a 1:1 setting.

I'd also recommend having your team go through Carol and Kristen's free workbook to help with anxiety around code reviews. If your whole team goes through it together, you can share learnings from it together, too, which will help improve that sense of belonging and shared experience.

Here are some more resources from me to help you build better teams!​

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