I first ran into this concept maybe 4-5 years ago while reading the GitLab handbook[1]. I have to say that I am a fan. I've been repeating this idea to every company and team that I have worked with since.

Lol, I recently had a potential issue where I switched teams and the team lead was new to the company. We had a daily standup thread in Slack. I would make the key ideas bold so it is easy to skim. The manager reached out a few weeks later and was taken aback by my "attitude" in these threads. He/she was assuming the bold text for anger and impatience (despite happening with both positive and negative ideas) while the original intent was to just ease reading comprehension. Now "assume positive intent" is always part of my intro spiel when working with new people.

1. https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/values/#assume-positive-in...