Beyond "Just Try Harder": Three effective strategies to tackle bugs (AOTB)

We’ve all been there. Developers are told to “just try harder” not to create bugs, and testers are expected to “just try harder” to catch bugs before they reach production. However, this age-old strategy doesn’t address the root causes of software bugs and can even be counterproductive.

In this session, we’ll explore three strategies for creating an environment that minimises the likelihood of bugs: optimising feedback loops, using monitoring and observability tools and feature flags, and reducing change approval overhead to prevent and detect bugs.

This session goes beyond code quality, testing, legacy issues, or poor requirements. It examines some underlying factors contributing to bug creation and outlines how to tackle them effectively.

* 45-minute talk presented at Agile on the Beach 2025.

Version with speaker notes here: https://speakerdeck.com/andyrlweir/beyond-just-try-harder-three-effective-strategies-to-tackle-bugs-aotb-speaker-notes

Transcript

1. Andy Weir Three effective strategies to tackle bugs Beyond Just Try Harder
2. Hi, I’m Andy Software Engineer
3. Hi, I’m Andy I started out in electronics fi xing tanks
4. Hi, I’m Andy I got a degree and job designing electronics for oil and gas
5. Hi, I’m Andy Bought a guesthouse. Building a website… How hard can it be?
6. Hi, I’m Andy And here I am
7. Hands Up Technical people
8. Hands Up Product people
9. Hands Up Leadership & business people
10. Beyond Just Try Harder Three e ff ective strategies to tackle bugs
11. What The Research Says From Bohem to DORA creating systems where bugs can’t hide
12. Fast Feedback Get feedback in the time it takes to make a cup of tea
13. Fast Feedback In Practice: Lie of the Land Quality Relied on Instinct Tests Were Broken Pipeline Ran Nothing Framework 100x Overhead
14. Fast Feedback In Practice: Local Feedback Measure Test Runtime Tag Tests by Cost Catch Issues Early Prioritise What Matters
15. Fast Feedback In Practice: Pipeline Feedback Keep Pipelines Simple Cache What You Can Run Tests in Parallel Constantly Improve Tests
16. Fast Feedback In Practice: Re fl ection What stops you getting feedback before the kettle boils? What tradeoffs do you make when feedback is slow?
17. Smaller, Safer Changes You can’t inspect a fourth leg onto a three-legged table
18. Smaller, Safer Changes You can’t inspect a fourth leg onto a three-legged table
19. Smaller, Safer Changes You can’t inspect a fourth leg onto a three-legged table
20. Smaller, Safer Changes In Practice: Lie of the Land Architecture With no Edges Legacy on Legacy Every Change Hurt Safety Theatre & Burnout
21. Smaller, Safer Changes In Practice: Legacy Migration Replace Piece by Piece Bake in Safety Create Boundaries Simplify Legacy
22. Smaller, Safer Changes In Practice: Living With Legacy Build Small, Merge Often Keep Moving Forward Test What You Plan to Ship Stay Ready to Release
23. Smaller, Safer Changes In Practice: Re fl ection Do your processes make small changes hard? What would it take to make small the default?
24. Controlled Delivery Find bugs before your customers do
25. Controlled Delivery In Practice: Lie of the land Fast Wasn’t Safe Logic We Couldn’t Trust Prod Had the Full Picture Needed Better Safety
26. Controlled Delivery In Practice: Start With Safety Nets Map the Event Flow Track Requests End to End Log Failures as Events Metrics From Day One
27. Controlled Delivery In Practice: Learn Before You Launch Run Systems Side by Side Capture Outputs Compare Results Use Production Traffic
28. Controlled Delivery In Practice: Safe Rollout Plan Rollouts by Behaviour Flags Control the Switch Pause and Verify Build Shared Confidence
29. Controlled Delivery In Practice: Re fl ection Can you deliver fast, and still sleep well at night? What would need to change to make that possible?
30. Go Beyond Just Try Harder Build systems that help you succeed
31. Explore the ideas, tools, and resources behind the talk Go Beyond Just Try Harder Andy Weir Quicks a nd by Andrew P ag lin a w a n · Playfair Display by Claus Eggers Sørensen Illustr a tions g ener a ted with Ch a tGPT + DALL·E (OpenAI)