Lone Star Software Symposium: Dallas - May 19 - 21, 2017 - No Fluff Just Stuff

Stop Getting Crushed By Business Pressure

Lone Star Software Symposium: Dallas

Dallas · May 19 - 21, 2017

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About this Presentation

This is my story of lessons learned on how to stop the crushing effects of business pressure… I was team lead with full control of our green-field project. After a year, we had continuous delivery, a beautiful clean code base, and worked directly with our customers to design the features. Then our company split in two, we were moved under different management, and I watched my project get crushed.

As a consultant, I saw the same pattern of relentless business pressure everywhere, driving one project after another into the ground. I made it my mission to help the development teams solve this problem. This is my story of lessons learned on how to transform an organization from the bottom up. I'll show you how to lead the way.

The crushing business pressure is caused by a broken feedback loop that's baked into the organization's design. In this presentation, I'll show you how to fix the broken feedback loop. Learn how to:

  • Gather evidence of developer productivity loss
  • Identify the key organizational changes required for success
  • Make the case to management for improvement
  • Partner with your manager for long-term success

If the system is broken, we need to fix the system. You can change the system by making the decision to lead.

Arty Starr

Developer Experience Researcher, University of Victoria

Arty Starr has been a software engineer for 20+ years and is a researcher and pioneer of new theories of the developer's cognitive experience that help us recognize how developers' experiences are changing with AI. Her theories of developer momentum and troubleshooting help us see software development through an ecological lens, recognizing it as a living activity in motion and the living capacities of care and cognition that support this motion. Her aim is to bring heart, human-centric values, and agency to the craft of software development so we can build toward the type of world we want to live in. With richer perception and by recognizing what matters, we can light a path to a future of thriving habitats where humans and AI can collaborate well and thrive together.

Arty is the author of Idea Flow, a speaker, thought leader, and artist who loves mixing ideas across disciplines into a fusion of creativity to help make the world a better place through her projects.