Keynote: The Skyrocketing Costs of Diagnostic Difficulty

With the explosion of new frameworks, a mountain of automation, and our applications distributed across hundreds of services in the cloud, the level of complexity in our industry is growing at an insane pace. With increased complexity comes increased costs and risks. When diagnosing unexpected behavior can take days, weeks, or sometimes months, all while our release is on the line, our projects plunge into chaos. In the invisible world of software development, how do we identify what's causing our pain? How do we escape the chaos?

Janelle Klein presents a novel approach to measuring the chaos, identifying the causes, and systematically driving improvement with a data-driven feedback loop. Rather than measuring the problems in the code, Janelle suggests measuring the “friction in Idea Flow”, the time it takes a developer to diagnose and resolve unexpected confusion, which disrupts the flow of progress during development.

With visibility of the symptoms, we can identify the cause, whether it's bad architecture, collaboration problems, or technical debt. Janelle discusses how to measure Idea Flow, why it matters, and the implications for our teams, our organizations, and our industry.

About Arty Starr

Arty Starr is a recognized Flow Experience expert, researcher, speaker and thought leader, and author of Idea Flow, how to measure the friction in software development. Arty's PhD research is developing a theory of momentum in software development, and she is creator of the FLOWS platform designed to help developers thrive and find joy through more time in the flow state. The company she founded, FlowInsight, is on a mission to bring back joy to our everyday work.

Arty is also a 2D/3D animator and artist, and has spent the last couple years building 3D apps in AR. She loves to share about her experiences with these technologies.

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