Humane Development

Agile. Scrum. Kanban. Waterfall. TDD. BDD. OOP. FP. AOP. WTH?

As a software developer, I can adopt methodologies so that I feel there's a sense of order in the world.

There's a problem with this story: We are humans, developing software with humans, to benefit humans. And humans are *messy*.

We wrap ourselves in process, trying to trade people for personas, points, planning poker, and the promise of predictability. Only people aren't objects to be abstracted away. Let's take some time to think through the tradeoffs we're making together.

Transcript

1. Ernie Miller humanedevelopment.org @erniemiller Humane Development
2. erniemiller
7. It’s not my fault.
8. Aptenodytes ashamed Dave Morris CC BY 2.0
9. Lots of penguins Brian Gratwicke CC BY 2.0
10. Walking away Mindy Kimball Used with permission
11. Software
12. Software + Team
13. Software + Team + Culture
14. Software + Team + Culture It’s totally my fault.
15. STORY TIME!
19. Simple Kanban Board Jeff Lasovski http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0
21. “You’re thinking of this all wrong. Think of it like another development task. Your team members are objects in the system and you’re doing engineering just like you would with software.” — A Former Boss
22. “You’re thinking of this all wrong. Think of it like another development task. Your team members are objects in the system and you’re doing engineering just like you would with software.” — A Former Boss
23. I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I’M DOING
24. Person.is_a? Object
25. Person.is_a? Object # => SO MUCH FALSE
27. Please Use Revolving Door Thomas Hawk CC BY-NC 2.0
29. Tell me about your childhood. Personal space. Have you heard of it?
31. “The Business” Values
32. “The Business” Values 1.Predictability
33. “The Business” Values 1.Predictability 2.Measurability
34. “The Business” Values 1.Predictability 2.Measurability 3.Control
35. © Jorge Royan / http://www.royan.com.ar / CC-BY-SA-3.0
37. Man in a Box Keith Allison CC BY-SA 2.0 Abstraction!
38. Human
39. Human Resources
40. Resources
41. We are humans working with humans to develop software for the benefit of humans.
43. Humane Development
44. humane
45. humane
46. Source: New Oxford American Dictionary humane |(h)yo ͞ oˈmān| adjective 1 having or showing compassion or benevolence • inflicting the minimum of pain 2 intended to have a civilizing or refining effect on people
47. Agile
48. The Land That Scrum Forgot Robert C. Martin
50. “Martin Fowler and I sat down and said ‘You know, we should form an organization.’” – Robert C. Martin, “The Land That Scrum Forgot”
51. “We called this the ‘Lightweight Process Summit’.” – Robert C. Martin, “The Land That Scrum Forgot”
52. “It was at that meeting we coined the term ‘Agile’.” – Robert C. Martin, “The Land That Scrum Forgot”
53. “It was Ward Cunningham, I believe, who said ‘You know, what we need here is a few statements where we don't disparage the old way of working. We say that we value the old way of working, but we value these other things more.’ ” – Robert C. Martin, “The Land That Scrum Forgot”
54. We are uncovering better ways of developing software by doing it and helping others do it. Through this work we have come to value: Individuals and interactions over processes and tools Working software over comprehensive documentation Customer collaboration over contract negotiation Responding to change over following a plan That is, while there is value in the items on the right, we value the items on the left more. The Agile Manifesto agilemanifesto.org
55. “At this meeting, Kent Beck reiterated his mission, his vision. He said again, ‘You know, this Agile thing, if we're going to call it Agile — it should be to heal the divide between business and development.’ And we all agreed.” – Robert C. Martin, “The Land That Scrum Forgot”
56. “Who do you think was taking these courses — these Certified Scrum Master courses? Was it developers? No. See, I was a developer, and I thought it was stupid. And all the other developers I talked to said ‘This is stupid.’ Who was it that didn't think it was stupid? Project Managers!” – Robert C. Martin, “The Land That Scrum Forgot”
57. “A Scrum Master was a coach. A Scrum Master was not a manager — explicitly not a manager, not supposed to be a manager.” – Robert C. Martin, “The Land That Scrum Forgot”
58. “[...] the role was supposed to rotate through the various team members. [...] And frankly, the idea of the role was to slowly kind of fade away so that in the end you wouldn't need a Scrum Master.” – Robert C. Martin, “The Land That Scrum Forgot”
59. “I don't think that the Project Managers who took the Certified Scrum Master course liked that particular interpretation.” – Robert C. Martin, “The Land That Scrum Forgot”
60. Individuals and interactions over processes and tools Working software over comprehensive documentation Customer collaboration over contract negotiation Responding to change over following a plan
62. Speed
63. Hustle
66. hustle
67. hustle
68. hustle |ˈhəәsəәl| verb 1 force (someone) to move hurriedly or unceremoniously in a specified direction • push roughly; jostle • hurry; bustle 2 obtain by forceful action or persuasion • coerce or pressure someone into doing or choosing something • sell aggressively • obtain by illicit action; swindle; cheat 3 engage in prostitution. noun 1 busy movement and activity 2 a fraud or swindle. Source: New Oxford American Dictionary
69. HUSTLE
71. F5 tornado Elie Manitoba 2007 — Justin1569 — CC BY-SA 3.0
72. The notion of hustle-as-a- virtue is one of the most damaging memes afflicting software developers today.
74. POINTS
75. VELOCITY = ZOMG!
76. Jeremy Wariner, ©2007 Phil McElhinney, CC BY-SA 2.0
77. Dr. Izumi Tabata
78. Tabata Intervals (2:1 work/recovery) Typical Sprint (1:3 work/recovery) = 10 seconds
81. An unsustainable pace is less than worthless.
82. The Big Picture is not on a “Need to Know” Basis Unless maybe you work for the CIA.
84. Estimates are lies.
85. Most deadlines are lies.
86. Most “urgent” things aren’t really urgent.
87. Why? the importance of
89. But the site is down! It’s actually urgent!
90. Why?
91. Because it’s down! Bad
92. Because while it’s down, we’re losing [credibility|exposure|$x/hr]. Good
93. Recursive Non-Answers
94. Recursive Non-Answers We need this feature by March 20th.
95. Recursive Non-Answers We need this feature by March 20th. Why?
96. Recursive Non-Answers We need this feature by March 20th. Why? So we can have this other feature by April 20th.
97. Recursive Non-Answers We need this feature by March 20th. Why? So we can have this other feature by April 20th. Why?
98. Recursive Non-Answers We need this feature by March 20th. Why? So we can have this other feature by April 20th. Why? …
99. “The Divide” is a lie.
100. We are humans working with humans to develop software for the benefit of humans.
101. There is no “us.”
102. There is no “them.”
103. A mission statement is not enough.
104. Empathy
105. Honesty
106. Smoke and Mirrors Flickr user: theilr CC BY-SA 2.0
108. Crunch Mode is an Exceptional Situation
109. def build_feature do_work rescue Timeout::Error => e sacrifice_time_and_sanity end
110. I’d rather live in a Gotham that didn’t need Batman.
111. I’d rather live in a Gotham that didn’t need Batman.
112. MY BEST CODE EVER
114. 100% TEST COVERAGE
115. ZERO MAINTENANCE
116. DOES EXACTLY WHAT YOU THINK
117. Formalized processes are code for your company.
118. Be skeptical of someone else’s processes.
119. Integration
120. Integration MiniTest
121. Integration MiniTest
122. – Chad Fowler, “The Curse of a Name: How to Kill a Good Idea” “I can ‘Do BDD’ in the same way I can sign up for a membership at the gym. I feel the sense of accomplishment without the need to actually get healthy.”
123. Processes are a problem statement.
124. Trust
125. Process
126. Address the source of the problem.
127. Use processes as a last resort.
128. Legacy
129. Process Metaprogramming
130. Glenn Vanderburg @glv
134. “Please note that this roundabout diagram is an example only and does not represent all roundabout designs.”
135. “Always drive so that everyone around you knows what you’re going to do before you do it.” – Thad Vanderburg
137. A Theory of Evolution for Tools
138. A Theory of Evolution for Tools 1. Reflect
139. A Theory of Evolution for Tools 1. Reflect 2. Become
140. A Theory of Evolution for Tools 1. Reflect 2. Become 3. Define
142. Build small tools.
143. Small tools are honest.
144. Small tools are honest. (and probably won’t turn sentient and decide to use you as a power source)
145. Leave room for choices.
146. Dr. Martin Seligman The Father of Positive Psychology
148. Dr. Ivan Pavlov Nobel Laureate, Grower of Splendid Beard
151. Learned Helplessness
152. Dr. Ellen Langer Dr. Judith Rodin
153. The Effects of Choice and Enhanced Personal Responsibility for the Aged: A Field Experiment in an Institutional Setting
154. The Effects of Choice and Enhanced Personal Responsibility for the Aged: A Field Experiment in an Institutional Setting Experiment Control You’re responsible for yourself Staff is responsible for you You have freedom to make choices Choices are made for you Choose and care for a plant Plant is assigned and cared for by staff
155. The Effects of Choice and Enhanced Personal Responsibility for the Aged: A Field Experiment in an Institutional Setting Experiment Control You’re responsible for yourself Staff is responsible for you You have freedom to make choices Choices are made for you Choose and care for a plant Plant is assigned and cared for by staff Questionnaire ratings and behavioral measures showed a significant improvement for the experimental group over the comparison group on alertness, active participation, and a general sense of well-being.
156. – Every abuser of power, everywhere “If you don’t like it, leave.”
158. AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT
162. Helpless?
163. We can work…
164. We can work… …any time.
165. We can work… …any time. …anywhere.
166. We can work… …any time. …anywhere. …in many different ways.
168. Empathy Honesty Trust
169. Control
170. Autonomy
171. People are just like objects! OOP, baby! — Horrible Boss
172. Object-Oriented Programming isn’t about objects.
173. Object-Oriented Programming isn’t about objects.
174. Everything about your organization is encoded in communication.
175. Processes are just reusable messages!
176. Processes are just reusable messages! (good)
177. SNR
178. Must be willing to relocate to 1992
179. Must be willing to relocate to 1992 to 1992
180. Stop trying to substitute throughput for efficiency.
181. PROGRAMMING IS WRITTEN COMMUNICATION
188. – Tony Robbins, Author “Change happens when the pain of staying the same is greater than the pain of change.”
189. Thought Work
191. Work
193. Really hard work
194. – R. Keith Sawyer, Ph.D. “In creativity research, we refer to the three Bs—for the bathtub, the bed and the bus—places where ideas have famously and suddenly emerged.”
195. You are literally always working.
196. Lead by example.
197. Empathy Honesty Trust Autonomy
198. Stop looking for people to control.
199. Why?
200. That’s not how relationships work.
201. Ernie Miller @erniemiller Humane Development humanedevelopment.org
202. Ernie Miller @erniemiller Humane Development ❤ humanedevelopment.org ZOMG STICKERS!!