When I ask fellow developers what they think about empathy, the answer is often “not much”. However, I believe that the skill of empathy, being able to place yourself in another’s position, is crucial to designing, building and operating software at any scale. Join me for a whistle stop tour of the benefits of empathy, which I have learned from working on a wide variety of software projects over the previous ten years. I will share stories of success and failure, and suggest practical techniques that you can harness in order to help your team develop empathy. When gathering requirements and performing business analysis, it is obvious that the ability to experience from within another user/customer/being's frame of reference is a valuable skill, but the same can be said when writing code. If we follow Martin Fowler’s train of thought where “any fool can write code that a computer can understand. Good programmers write code that humans can understand” we can see that empathy is at the heart of this skill. We could also argue that the rise of “DevOps” is simply both sides of the traditional divide trying to understand each other better. Developing the skill of empathy isn’t necessarily easy, but in this talk I will share my learnings, techniques and tricks for developing more effective software.

1. Empathy
The hidden ingredient of good
software development?
Daniel Bryant
@danielbryantuk

2. empathy
noun | em·pa·thy | ˈem-pə-thē
The feeling that you understand and share
another person's experiences and emotions
The ability to share someone else's
feelings and perspective
18/08/2016 @danielbryantuk

3. A typical software development debacle…
Me: I think we’re some missing empathy here…
Client: Is that a new JavaScript framework? Empathy.js?
Me: No, no – shared understanding...
Client: Is it a new communication style? RxEmpathy?
Me: No, I mean thinking about the needs and feelings of your
(customer|team mate|boss|internet troll)
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4. Empathy misplaced?
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5. We’re (typically) developing software…
…for other people
…with other people
...to create an (emotional) experience
Surely we have to understand other peoples’ experiences?
This is why empathy is important
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6. @danielbryantuk
• Chief Scientist at OpenCredo, CTO at SpectoLabs
• Agile, architecture, CI/CD, DevOps
• Java, Go, JS, microservices, cloud, containers
• Driving change through the application of technology and teams
• London Java Community Associate
• InfoQ Editor, DZone MVB, Voxxed…
• Conference regular: Devoxx, JavaOne, QCon…
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7. The next 40 minutes: Empathy…
• Core principles
• In the real world
• Requirements gathering
• Architecture and development
• Operations
• Leadership
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8. Core principles
Know yourself, know others, seek rapid feedback
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9. Core themes in the presentation
• Know yourself
• Who we are determines how we see others (emotional intelligence)
• The first person we must examine is ourselves
• Know others
• The world – with one exception – is composed of others
• We can lift people up or take people down
• Seek rapid feedback
• No one gets it right all the time
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10. Know thyself…
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11. Know others
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12. The range of empathy…
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Strong empathy Strong apathy

13. Requirements gathering
Because we’re creating software for other people
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14. IT as conversational medium
• Post-agile
• Start with why (impact)
• Design thinking
• Empathy
• Ethnography
• Abductive thinking
• Iterative user testing
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15. Impact mapping
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www.impactmapping.org

16. Personas
• Represent a major user group
• Express needs and expectations
• Uncovering universal features
and functionality
• Describe real people with
backgrounds, goals, and values
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17. Empathy mapping
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18. Ethnography - “get out of the building”
• www.notonthehighstreet.com
• “In your shoes”
• Large UK retailer
• “Shop floor time”
• My own experiences…
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19. Core themes - requirements
• Know yourself
• What impact am I seeking? (Start with why)
• Know others
• Seek to understand users
• Visit users in their natural habitat
• Seek rapid feedback
• Prototyping
• Build, measure, learn
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20. Architecture and development
Because we’re building software alongside other people
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21. Architecture
• Shared understanding
• Architects must code
• Risk management
• Technical
• Stakeholder
• ‘Just enough’ upfront design
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22. Risk management - evaluation
“I will postpone using this shiny new framework until my peers have
validated the proposed benefits with rigorous scientific experiments”
- Said by no programmer
…ever
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23. Evaluation - Fitness functions
• Microservices as an Evolutionary Architecture
• Neal Ford and Rebecca Parsons
• Great for evaluation and documentation
• Platforms / Language
• Middleware
• Data stores
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24. Evaluation - Raible’s comparison matrix
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www.slideshare.net/mraible/comparing-jvm-web-frameworks-february-2014

25. Evaluation – The Spine Model
• Effective conversations make for
effective collaboration
• It's a TOOL Problem
• As a species, we have always been Tool
users and makers.
• We use _____ to get our work done
• People get stuck in a dilemma where
equally plausible options are available
• “Going up the Spine” breaks deadlock http://spinemodel.info/explanation/introduction/

26. Determine the need for the tool
• PRACTICES before Tools
• Decide on the Practices that the tools are there to
support
• We do _____ to create value
• PRINCIPLES before Practices
• Decide on the Principles to measure those Practices
against.
• We leverage _____ to change the system
• VALUES before Principles
• Make as explicit as possible the Values at play in the
system.
• We optimise for _____
• NEEDS before Values
• It all starts at Needs. Why does this system exist in the
first place?
• We are here to satisfy _____ http://spinemodel.info/explanation/introduction/

27. Coding
• All code is communication
• ”Clean Code”
• Wikis and READMEs
“Always code as if the person who ends
up maintaining your code is a violent
psychopath who knows where you live.”
-Jeff Atwood
blog.codinghorror.com/coding-for-violent-psychopaths/
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28. Systems thinking – the user journey
• Understand the user journey
• “Shift left” QA
• Three amigos
• ”Quality Advocates”
• BDD and TDD
• Outside in
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29. If you’re building microservices...
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specto.io/blog/recipe-for-designing-building-testing-microservices.html

30. Core themes – architecture and dev
• Know yourself
• Check your evaluation and communcation skills
• Know others
• Understand the whole (systems/solution-focused)
• Establish the correct perspective - think outside-in
• Seek rapid feedback
• Prototype
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31. Operations
Because everyone is responsible for the (continual) delivery of valuable software
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32. Regulatory fit theory
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Mary Poppendieck
bit.ly/1VvYi83

33. Share the pain...
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34. “Developer-on-call”
An occasional spike to the head
is a good thing...
...metaphorically speaking
• You build it, you run it
• Accountability
• Shared responsibility
• Communication
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35. DevOps - it’s not a department
• Pair with developers
• Treat operators are stakeholders
• Involve in standups
• Communication face-to-face
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36. Outside-in (and systems) thinking
• Lineage-driven fault injection
• Semantic monitoring
• Avoiding alert fatigue
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www.infoq.com/presentations/failure-test-research-netflix

37. Core themes - operations
• Know yourself
• Seek freedom and accountability
• Know others
• Dev-on-call / DevOps
• It’s all about perspective – think systems and outside-in
• Seek rapid feedback
• Semantic monitoring (systems)
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38. Leadership
Because we’re always influencing (leading) other people
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39. Communicate the tech vision
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40. Don’t micromanage - People learn from mistakes
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People with new tech be like…
…f*cking new technology
This has been me
many times!

41. Listen, empathise, and provide feedback
• Separate appreciation, coaching
and evaluation
• First seek to understand
• See your blind spots
• Identify the relationship system
• Cultivate a growth identity
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42. Leadership
• Know yourself
• Big five personality traits, MBTI, meditation
• Know your vision/mission/goals
• Know others
• Engineers (including myself) can be a funny interesting bunch!
• Care about the team (their stories, journey, motivation…)
• Coaching is a valuable skills
• Seek rapid feedback
• 360 feedback
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43. Wrapping up
Because this presentation has to finish at some point…
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44. Empathy is like a muscle…
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45. Empathy is like a muscle…
• Habit 1: Cultivate curiosity about strangers
• Habit 2: Challenge prejudices and discover
commonalities
• Habit 3: Try another person’s life
• Habit 4: Listen hard—and open up
• Habit 5: Inspire mass action and social change
• Habit 6: Develop an ambitious imagination
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46. Final thoughts
• Know yourself
• Who we are determines how we see others
• The first person we must examine is ourselves
• Know others
• The world – with one exception – is composed of others
• We can lift people up or take people down
• Seek rapid feedback
• No one gets it right all the time
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47. The rest is up to you…
Thanks to all the OpenCredo team and Tareq Abedrabbo for inspiration
@danielbryantuk
daniel.bryant@opencredo.com
www.opencredo.com
18/08/2016 @danielbryantuk