Getting out of your comfort zone pays off.
Understanding social heuristics in this ‘IT-world’ does too.

Last May, at NewCrafts Conference in beautiful Paris, I got out of my stage-comfort zone for the second time. After a great experience at Domain Driven Design Europe in Amsterdam, I went on stage again in Paris to just talk about social heuristics and dynamics in software development. And I had a blast. Again. (Oh, if you want to see me eliminating an elephant in the room, the recording is available.)

Will be able to give you a definite answer after the third gig…

Let’s celebrate heuristics where we can. Especially in software development.

I’ve been on stage quite a few times now, where I usually talk about balancing socio-technical complexity. There’s a lot of focus on social dynamics, human interaction and communication in these talks, but a large portion focuses on the more technical side of things. Just to be sure.

While I was preparing my talk for Domain Driven Design Europe (DDD Europe), I realized that these more technical parts became some sort of a weird comfort zone over time. …

And why we should never stop learning new things

I’ve been grappling with this question for some time now. And it turns out to be quite complex. Lots of influencing factors, dependencies and subquestions. Luckily, complexity triggers me. Specifically my need to learn new things.

I can probably blame my father for this curious habit, or need to learn new things. Some might call it utterly annoying, others will call it a blessing. Ever since I can remember I was being told that I should never stop learning, and that learning in itself is a better reward than any other (tangible) things you may be offered. …

Software quality takes time. And good quality products come from properly working feedback loops. Timely feedback can mean clarity over confusion; a validation of assumptions can mean shorter development cycles.

For example, let’s say you have a project that needs to be delivered next month, but you and your development team know it will take at least two more months to complete. How do you communicate this to key stakeholders?

First off, you need to establish a shared understanding of goals and quality amongst all involved participants. As a developer, you tend to base your behavior and build products and…

Do you ever feel that others just don’t get what you meant or do the exact opposite of what you where asking for? Frustrating as it is, part of it can probably be blamed on you.

Enter feedback loops.

Being well aware that this is a universal theme, I will focus specifically on feedback loops in software development in this post. (Not excluding the possibility of writing multiple versions of this post.) Having spent some time in the ‘IT world’, I can cautiously conclude that non-functioning, chaotic feedback loops cause a lot of harm in many software development projects.

Every…

In an attempt to make sense of this world in general, and the IT-world in particular, we all use shortcuts and stereotypes.

When joining a software consultancy company, I quickly learned that there is ‘business’ and ‘IT’, which are two very different things and shall not be intertwined. The ‘business’ is full of ‘non-technical’ people that have no clue about actual software development and need everything to be done yesterday, whereas ‘IT’ is full of ‘technical’ people who cannot resolve issues in a timely manner, talk a whole different language and is way too expensive as a department.

Pretty inconvenient…

Everyone in software development — from coders to executives — agrees that producing high-quality code is important . . . but what do their organizations DO about it? All of SIG’s work confirms that high-quality software is easier to maintain, cheaper, more secure, and results in better business outcomes. Yet after 16 years in the field, we still see many companies that haven’t dedicated the necessary resources or institutional processes to back up their good wishes for quality code.

We decided to research this further, which led to an earlier poll that we at SIG conducted together with O’Reilly. …

Now that software affects almost every aspect of our lives, it’s easier than ever to see the importance of high-quality coding. And since coding is obviously a craft, such craftsmanship needs clear criteria to assess its quality.

However, there seems to be no consensus about what software quality really means — and, all too often, no sense of urgency to establish quality standards.

Asking Coders What They Think About Software Quality
That’s why O’Reilly and SIG partnered at the beginning of this year to conduct a poll to ask working software developers about what makes great-quality code, and how it should…