Punishment Driven Development with Louise Elliott

Punishment Driven Development

What is the first thing we do when a major issue occurs in a live system? Sort it out of course. Then we start the hunt for the person to blame so that they can suffer the appropriate punishment. What do we do if a person is being awkward in the team and won’t agree to our ways of doing things? Ostracise them of course, and see how long it is until they leave – problem solved.

This highly interactive talk delves into why humans have this tendency to blame and punish. It looks at real examples of punishment within the software world and the results which were achieved. These stories not only cover managers punishing team members but also punishment within teams and self-punishment. We are all guilty of some of the behaviours discussed.

This is aimed at everyone involved in software development. After the talk attendees will understand:

· Why we tend to blame and punish others.

· The impact of self-blame.

· The unintended (but predictable) results from punishment.

· The alternatives to punishment, which get real results.

About Louise
Louise has worked in the software world for longer than she cares to remember as developer, architect and manager. She is passionate about pragmatic agile, delivering value, cosmology, photography, visiting Antarctica (if only), roller derby, machine learning, bridge (the card game not things that help you cross rivers), people stuff, war poetry and politics and she will talk endlessly about all of these given half the chance. She believes that people are infinitely fascinating and that managing people is like the most complex multivariable multithreaded system you ever encountered.