Upgrade to Pro — share decks privately, control downloads, hide ads and more …

BDD - Bias driven development

BDD - Bias driven development

Despite non-technical people may think that software development is an exact science, programmers know that this is far from being true. That's also because our industry is heavily influenced by many of the most common cognitive biases: technical choices are made following hypes (pro-innovation bias) or gurus (bandwagon bias); we create homemade tools instead of using de-facto standards (not-invented-here syndrome) and fix bugs without a full understanding of the problems (placebo bias) or even we pretend that there isn't any problem at all (ostrich bias). The first step to bring software development closer to an engineering discipline is recognizing this biases and admitting that we all suffer of them.

Mario Fusco

May 08, 2022
Tweet

More Decks by Mario Fusco

Other Decks in Programming

Transcript

  1. 1. Too much information: we are overloaded by information, so

    we aggressively filter. Some of the what we leave out is actually useful and important
  2. 2. Not enough meaning: we imagine details that were filled

    in by our assumptions, and construct meaning and stories that aren't really there.
  3. 3. Need to act fast: quick decisions can be seriously

    flawed. Some of the quick reactions and decisions we jump to are unfair and counter-productive
  4. 4. What should we remember?: our memory reinforces errors. Some

    of the stuff we remember for later just makes all of the above systems more biased
  5. Choice-supportive bias: when you choose something, you tend to feel

    positive about it, even if that choice has flaws
  6. Well traveled road effect: travelers estimate the time taken to

    traverse routes differently depending on their familiarity with the route. Frequently traveled routes are assessed as taking a shorter time than unfamiliar routes
  7. Overconfidence: some of us are too confident about their own

    abilities, and this causes us to take greater risks in our daily lives The amount of damages that you can cause with a wrong decision is proportional to the level of overconfidence with which you take it
  8. Placebo effect: when simply believing that something will have a

    certain effect on you causes it to have that effect
  9. Ostrich effect: the decision to ignore dangerous or negative information

    by “burying” one’s head in the sand, like an ostrich
  10. Pro-innovation bias: when a proponent of an innovation tends to

    overvalue its usefulness and undervalue its limitations
  11. Semmelweis effect is a metaphor for the tendency to reject

    new evidence or new knowledge because it contradicts established norms
  12. Bias blind spot: we recognize the impact of biases on

    the judgement of others, while failing to see the impact of biases on our decisions
  13. A non-repeatable process producing few great successes and many miserable

    failures We got what we deserved for making software development a craftsmanship instead of an engineering discipline
  14. Life is easier on giants' shoulders It's a curious thing

    about software industry: not only we do not learn from our mistakes, we also don't learn from our successes - Keith Braithwaite