Fantastic Biases & Where to Find Them in Software Development
Michael Kutz & João Proença
REWE Digital Tech & OutSystems
Why did all our test cases fail because of this simple bug? Nobody tried that out before? How did five people agree to implement this terrible feature? Why are our estimates always so far off?
There are many possible answers to those questions and none of them will be the whole truth. However, certain common cognitive biases might play a main role in all of the events leading to those questions. We all have them.
They help us to think faster, but they also make us less rational than we think we are. They hinder our best judgement! In this talk we will demonstrate some of the most severe biases, explain their background, point out how they typically influence our professional decisions, and suggest some strategies to mitigate their effect.
Being able to recognise and overcome cognitive biases in us and others is a long, challenging road for anyone – you won’t be able to do that journey with this talk alone, but you’ll certainly take your first step!
This talk will explore cognitive biases in software development and why you need to be aware of them.
Key Takeaways:
• Learn what Cognitive Biases are
• Recognise and overcome biases
• Discover how biases influence our decisions
This talk is part of the EuroSTAR Deep Dive Week – People Skills Edition. You are invited to enjoy live presentations, Ask Me Anything (AMA) sessions, eBooks, and blogs on People Skills.
About Me!
Michael Kutz
Michael has been working in professional software development for more than 10 years now. He loves to write working software and hates fixing bugs. Hence he developed a strong focus on test automation, continuous delivery/deployment and agile principals. Since 2014 he has work at REWE Digital as a software engineer and since 2018 as quality engineer. As such his main objective is to support our development teams in QA and test automation to empower them to write awesome bug-free software fast.
João Proença
João Proença comes from Lisbon, Portugal, and is Quality Owner in R&D for OutSystems, a company that provides one of the leading low-code development platforms in the world. He has assumed various roles throughout his career in the past 11 years, including quality assurance, development, customer support and marketing. Finding innovative solutions for difficult problems is what drives him the most, so he is always eager to talk about how professionals are overcoming testing challenges around the world. Outside of IT, João is passionate about songwriting, movies and football. You’ll see him tweet about all of these topics using the @jrosaproenca handle.