Teams are a fundamental part of the way we all work. Understanding the ins and outs of team decision making makes us better employees, better co-workers, and even better people. As developers and testers, we continuously make decisions. Most decisions are based on how the decision maker perceives the information at hand. That perception is driven by many factors including cognitive biases—the mental shortcuts we use that lead us to simplify, make quick decisions, and ultimately mess up when we’re trying to attack new problems. Biases can affect how information is perceived, and how teams and individuals behave. Biases are like optical illusions—we see what we want to see, even when we know better. Learn the cognitive biases that affect team thinking and take away strategies for how your team can work with and around these biases. Finally, discover how psychology can make your team more efficient and effective together.
Thomas Cagley
The David Consulting Group
VP of consulting for The David Consulting Group, Thomas Cagley is an authority in guiding organizations through continuous process improvement. His areas of expertise encompass a wide variety of methods and metrics including lean software development, agile software development, quality integration, quality assurance, and the application of the Software Engineering Institute’s Capability Maturity Model® Integration (CMMI) to achieve process improvements. Thomas is an active member of the International Function Point Users Group and a Certified Function Point Specialist. He is the editor of the Software Process and Measurement Podcast (SPaMCAST), blogs at tcagley.wordpress.com, and can be reached at [email protected].
Speaker Presentations
Wednesday, May 7, 2014 - 3:00pm
Personal Excellence
The Impact of Cognitive Biases on Test and Project Teams