Deliberate Discovery

Modern software delivery involves the decomposition of a problem into packets of business and technical analysis, design, architecture, programming, testing, integration, deployment, documentation, and training. No matter how well-intentioned our iterative or sequential approach is to these activities, our success rate of software delivery is still far below what it should be. Advances in these disciplines haven’t reduced the unpleasant surprises that occur uncomfortably late in projects. Dan North thinks it's because we are focusing on the wrong things, which means that any software delivery is merely a happy accident. He explains why ignorance is the greatest enemy to success, and presents some strategies and techniques for deliberately reducing ignorance, increasing learning, and moving toward a more deterministic and lower risk software delivery. We don’t like hearing bad news and will happily delude ourselves into thinking that things are better than they are. So this session probably isn’t for you—except that it is.