In episode 150, I reintroduced this series with a new pitch. It was my way of taking what I've learnt over the last three years, the last 150 episodes, and almost 33 hours of content and updating the why the podcast. Over the coming episodes, I'll take a deeper dive into the themes of the pitch and why they made the cut. Over the last few episodes, I've looked at the business side of the pitch and how our organisations need to embrace changes as something they do rather than something that happens to them. In this episode, I want to move onto the Software Development half of the pitch, and look at its age and maturity.
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Published: Wed, 23 Nov 2022 16:59:16 GMT
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Hi. In episode 150, I reintroduced this series with a new pitch. It was my way of taking what I've learnt over the last three years, the last 150 episodes and almost 33 hours of content and updating the why of the podcast.
Over a number of episodes, I'm taking a deeper dive into the themes of that pitch and why they made the cut. If you've not had a chance to listen to the pitch, it's worth pausing and going back to episode 150 for context.
In episodes 152-254, I talked about the business side of the pitch. Almost half of the pitch was devoted to the business context that we are doing our Software Development in - and why our organisations are under so much pressure to change. And how each of our organisations needs to embrace change as something they do rather than something that happens to them.
Over the next few episodes, I want to explore the second half of the pitch, the actual Software Development part. In this episode, I want to look into the section that says:
"Alongside this software development, and what we do with it continues to be an evolving field - one that is still young and growing, one that is likely to take more than my lifetime to fully understand, if indeed it ever can be."
This is often such a difficult message to get across.
The Software Development industry is incredibly young. The current technical revolution, the Age of Software and Digital, which I talked about in episode 153, has brought us massive change - and Software Development is one of them.
And that Age of Software and Digital is, at best, only 50 years old. And with the rapid growth of technology, the increasing range of capabilities and opportunities, the Software Development industry is always having to try to be better, to learn, to improve.
Back in episode eight, I introduced the Agile Manifesto. The Agile Manifesto is a set of core beliefs and principles established over 21 years ago for better ways to think about Software Development. The manifesto was created by a collection of well respected thought-leaders in Software Development industry and has stood as a guiding light ever since.
Now I mention the manifesto because it starts with a statement that is as true today as it was 21 years ago:
"We are uncovering better ways of developing software by doing it and helping others do it."
This collection of well respected thought-leaders, people from the top of the software development profession, had the foresight and humbleness to start the manifesto with a simple reflection that they were still learning and finding better ways of developing software.
In how many professions do we see that level of humility, that level of self-understanding to be able to say, yes, I am at the top of my game and yes, I still have so much to learn?
This is very much something we rarely see within the business community. To admit to not knowing something is often seen as a weakness. It makes us look incompetent or ill-prepared for the job that we are doing. And that's something I'll come back to in a moment.
If, however we look at sport, we can see the level of continuous improvement in all professional sports. The stars of every sport are known to continually be improving and developing their skills. Take karate, for example, becoming a black belt may seem like the ultimate destination - however, in truth, it's actually the starting point of real learning and discovery.
And of course the Agile Manifesto recognises this, and from one of its principles:
"At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly."
This is fundamentally the idea that the team should be baking in a means of learning, of continual growth, of continual improvement. This is commonly done through a retrospective, a meeting where the team discuss how they work, looking for opportunities for improvement - better ways of working, solutions to blockers or impediments, identifying missing skills, resolving interpersonal issues - anything that can improve the outcomes of the team.
This is often equated to the lumberjack taking time to sharpen his axe. They must invest time in the sharpening - time in which their colleagues may have started to cut down trees. But with the sharper axe, the lumberjack will soon overtake those that are too busy struggling to cut down their trees with a blunt axe.
But this need to learn and evolve can be a difficult sell.
Software Developers are not cheap. I can well understand those outside of Software Development thinking we're paying a lot of money for someone that should know exactly what they're doing. They believe they are paying good money for someone that has the experience and the training to repeat something they have done before.
And this is possibly a key point: "having done it before" is never the case with Software Development. Every time is different. Every context will be different. Maybe only a little, but maybe a lot.
It could be a different problem is being solved, a different outcome is desired, it could be a different organisational team structure, the software are underlying technologies could have changed, we as individuals or as a team may have found better ways of working. The variations are infinite.
Even day-to-day, the context within which we do our Software Development will change. As Software Developers, we are consciously going for that Kubler-Ross change curve I described in episode 154, and this is something we need support from our line managers and organisations.
But this leadership support takes courage.
As I talked about in episode 154, it can be difficult for people who have achieved success one way, to be aware that what worked for them previously, what brought them success, what brought them to the dance, is the thing that is holding them and the organisation back.
Many managers and leaders have reached their position on what was known yesterday. But today we know more. There is a need for constant learning and remaining relevant. Again, we have the same problem when I talked about change in episode 154, the people that need to change are going to be the ones listening to this podcast. If you're listening to this podcast, then you've already changed.
And the same is true of most managers. They've reached the position in their career with what works for them. Why would they mess with what they believe is working?
Again, this is change.
This is scary.
If you've worked hard to reach your position, why would you want to dismiss the very techniques that got you where you are?
Again, I repeat the section from the pitch:
"Alongside this software development, and what we do with it continues to be an evolving field - one that is still young and growing, one that is likely to take more than my lifetime to fully understand, if indeed it ever can be."
In next week's episode, I'll take a deeper dive into why some of those management practices that gave us success yesterday are failing us today and certainly not fit for tomorrow.
Thank you for taking the time to listen to this podcast and look forward to speaking to you again next week.