Review of the talk: "Complexity is Outside of the Code"

Broadcast live streaming video on Ustream

Yesterday I watched the video: "Complexity is Outside of the Code" by Dan North and Jessica Kerr at craft conference 2015.  Here I summarize what I learned.

Learning

• Learning is a first class task.
• Follow the process: explore, evaluate, familiarize, understand and validate
• Lean startup's "build-measure-learn" cycle, nothing should be built without any reason.

business impact <- learn <- measure <- test <- code

Dan uses the Kanban's pull based concept to describe the above concept: for example test pulls the code, business pulls the learn. This drives me to think more about TDD, in TDD we believe we should never start coding without a failing test.(Uncle Bob's 3 laws of TDD),  which is quite similar with the lean startup concept: "nothing should be built without any reason",  in TDD, the failing test is the only reason for coding, which means the failing tests pulls the code, Bingo! Now I understand why Kent beck said TDD is Kanban for code


The Goal of software development

The goal of software development is to sustainably minimize lead time to business impact

Develop a supportive community

• Nurturing a supporting team is vital within software development
• It is OK to point out bad things and not have a solution
• Reduce specialist silos, encourage becoming generalist
• Developing a supportive community, contribute open source to other teams

Resources
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/61439914
http://www.infoq.com/news/2015/04/north-kerr-complexity-code
http://www.slideshare.net/jessitron/complexity-is-outside-the-code