How Technical Problems Cause Organizational Friction • Adam Tornhill • GOTO 2023

This presentation was recorded at GOTO Copenhagen 2023. #GOTOcon #GOTOcph
gotocph.com
Adam Tornhill - Founder & CTO at CodeScene; Programmer, Psychologist, Lisp Hacker, Speaker & Author of "Your Code as a Crime Scene" ‪@adamtornhill2546‬
ORIGINAL TALK TITLE
Socio-Technical Smells: How Technical Problems Cause Organizational Friction
RESOURCES
/ adamtornhill
github.com/adamtornhill
/ adam-tornhill-71759b48
www.adamtornhill.com
Links
arxiv.org/abs/2203.04374
arxiv.org/pdf/2304.11636
arxiv.org/pdf/1904.08239
www.microsoft.com/en-us/resea...
codescene.com
ABSTRACT
Successful software development requires that you keep code and people in balance so that one supports the other. It's a hard challenge since a piece of code doesn't reveal anything about its socio-technical context. Enter behavioral code analysis, an approach which combines code level metrics with data on how teams interact within the code. Armed with these techniques, we look to reduce organizational friction by focusing on a set of common challenges:
• Identify architectural coordination bottlenecks and understand the technical root causes.
• Visualize implicit dependencies between teams, act to decouple teams.
• Discover knowledge risks by measuring the Truck Factor. Learn how to mitigate it.
• Communicate the scaling risks inherent in Brooks's Law by showing data on how it impacts your delivery.
• Go beyond technical impact by knowing how bad code causes unhappiness, low morale, and increased attrition.
All techniques are demonstrated with examples from real-world codebases. If you are a senior developer, software architect, or technical lead, this presentation will change how you view code. So join in to learn why technical decisions are never merely technical, and how you can stay a step ahead by preventing socio-technical smells. [...]
TIMECODES
00:00 Intro
01:40 1. The overcrowded system
08:58 2. Coordination bottlenecks in the code
21:04 3. A propagating cost of change
31:42 4. Dependent work crossing team boundaries
33:05 5. Unhealthy code with a low Truck Factor
42:25 Summary
44:32 Outro
Download slides and read the full abstract here:
gotocph.com/2023/sessions/2956
RECOMMENDED BOOKS
Adam Tornhill • Your Code as a Crime Scene, 2nd Ed. • amzn.to/44khqgE
Adam Tornhill • Software Design X-Rays • amzn.to/3DEeEnI
Adam Tornhill • Your Code as a Crime Scene • amzn.to/3FI5E2V
Adam Tornhill • Lisp for the Web • leanpub.com/lispweb
Adam Tornhill • Patterns in C • leanpub.com/patternsinc
Caitlin Sadowski & Thomas Zimmermann • Rethinking Productivity in Software Engineering • amzn.to/41ztwjs
Fred Brooks Jr. • The Mythical Man-Month • amzn.to/31NJc5C
/ gotocon
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/ goto_con
/ gotoconferences
#SocioTechnicalSmells #BehavioralCodeAnalysis #TruckFactor #CodeScene #CodeAsACrimeScene #AdamTornhill #TechnicalDebt #Legacy #LegacyCode #DeveloperProductivity #CodeComplexity #Complexity #CodeSmells #RedCode #GreenCode #CodeQuality #CodeHealth
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[@flashflexpro]

This is THE best video for modern software development!

[@kanji_nakamoto]

I wasn’t expecting this talk to be so useful. Thank you!