The Psychology of Software Teams

https://www.routledge.com/The-Psychology-of-Software-Teams/Hicks/p/book/9781032963389

by dcre • 7 days ago

177 56 7 days ago

xfact192• 7 days ago

As a mid-manager, the last two chapters in the ToC appeal: 6. Becoming an Organization That Wants to Understand Itself 7. Fighting Dirty for Good Culture

yodon• 2 days ago

Giant cookie banner says "Do not sell my personal information" + "switch the toggle to opt out".

Which is it? Am I switching the toggle to opt out of selling my personal information or am I switching it to opt out of NOT selling my personal information?

I shouldn't have to read a paragraph of fine print to tell if they are intentionally using a dark pattern or merely incapable of composing a simple declarative sentence.

It's a shame, because it looks like an interesting book.

anonymars• 2 days ago

How I miss checkboxes instead of these god-damned Schrodinger's sliders that replaced them

Except they've now started ruining them too with the new asinine trend of making them look like radio buttons

zombot• 2 days ago

All those designer weenies need to justify their existence.

pluc2• 2 days ago

The author's site is https://www.drcathicks.com/ and this is the publisher.

zx8080• 2 days ago

For ebooks it offers some "VitalSource ebooks". Does anyone know whether it offers a regular pdf or they shitty custom closed format only?

mactavish88• 2 days ago

Not "open" as such, but Kobo sells this title.

pietherr2• 2 days ago

You can request an epub it seems

https://bsky.app/profile/nezteb.net/post/3mr3tbpp3ds2w

Aurornis2• 2 days ago

I feel like there could be a lot of value in understanding the psychology of teams and using it to build an environment where they can thrive.

However, every person I've worked with who was into these workplace-psychology books started thinking of themselves as expert diagnosticians of other people's psychology. Every personality or problem got mapped back to a scenario from a book they read, even when it wasn't a good fit. They started believing they understood other people better than those people understood themselves.

You couldn't talk to them about problems unless you could figure out which book(s) they were using, read them yourself, and then played a game where you explained things to them in a way that would get them to match the stereotyped situations in their books.

So instead of saying that the requirements are changing too haphazardly and too often (which would get you labelled as being too rigid or a complainer or something) you would have to explain that the requirements changing process is harmful to the team's psychological safety or other buzzwords. They've read enough books saying that a manager's job is to provide psychological safety, they see themselves as the hero manager, and therefore they need to fix this problem to provide psychological safety for the team.

I loathed it all so very much. It's refreshing to go back to managers who just talk to other people like people. I'm sure my good managers also read some of these books, but they didn't put any one book on a pedestal or take it all too literally.

fcarraldo• 2 days ago

I suspect people who act this way would do so with or without the books. Cargo cult mentality says more about the person than the source material.

It’s good to read others’ perspectives and expand your own. It’s even good when you disagree with the author. But you need to read multiple perspectives and adopt a habit of learning.

nick_• 2 days ago

My most recent manager was exactly like this.

sasaf5• 2 days ago

I am very curious: did you figure some of the books they were using?

Aurornis2• 2 days ago

That's a good question. Some of the perspectives in the book can be helpful. The limitation is that the scenarios and themes in the books are always a little too perfect to reflect real life.

Like you're watching a movie and everything is going disastrously wrong, then the hero shows up and the tone completely changes for the better. Everything starts going right.

The most valuable parts are probably reframing the situations and looking for different perspectives as a way to broaden your thinking. I try to take them as as additional perspectives to have available.

I think the thing I disliked the most about having the books applied to me was when they were treated as an instruction manual for all situations. People would read those books and then start to fit every situation into something from the book.

The Team Topologies book that another comment brought up is a common offender. For years you could tell when someone had read the book because they'd try to force every organization to fit into the prescribed team and interaction formats. If it wasn't working out they'd switch to one of the other formats instead of thinking critically about what we needed for our unique situation.

antihipocrat• 2 days ago

This seems to be common in large corporations. Your example (requirements changing haphazardly) is a very common occurrence, it's a class of problem where the inevitable failure can't be isolated to one or two things with certainly.

Failure could be team burnout and attrition, it could be a major bug due to fast tracking validation (or not checking AI output), or a fundamental architectural issue with future repercussions that with a clearer mindset would have been considered .. or myriad other things in combination.

The person calling out the risk knows that it will 100% cause a failure somewhere. Exactly where and how the failure will occur cannot be predicted beforehand and it actually doesn't matter as the end result will be a missed delivery or incident.

Unfortunately the executive decision maker needs a concrete failure in order to implement a concrete solution.

onion2k• 2 days ago

Working with someone who thinks Team Topologies is an instruction manual is not fun.

CuriousSkeptic• 1 day ago

Try handing them a copy of “10X Org”

(the authors tries to abstract over team topologies, adding some additional design dimensions)

ozim• 1 day ago

Working with anyone who reads a book and treats it as an instruction is not fun.

Just like working with fresh college grads who are ambitious and think college knowledge is an instruction.

norome• 2 days ago

I'd say it's a reflection of an earlier stage of interpersonal maturity to try and put people into categories. More socially attuned people realize the complexity of other people and situations and synthesize all the available information to make a decision that is truly reflective of reality.

pietherr2• 2 days ago

You must have read Changing on the job :p

ambicapter4• 1 day ago

I would even go so far as to say this is the general pattern of individuals learning models with explanatory power for dealing with reality. First, you learn the model, you try to apply it absolutely everywhere even in places where it won't work, you learn its limits, you then synthesize it into your holistic understanding along with every model you've learned thus far.

rdtsc• 1 day ago

I'd say it's a reflection of an earlier stage of interpersonal maturity to try and put people into categories. More socially attuned people realize the complexity of other people and situations and synthesize all the available information to make a decision that is truly reflective of reality.

It's interesting to think how this affects self-perception. Basically this applies to how one views and treats themselves. One approach is to read book, take a test and put yourself in a bin: "well, I'll never be able to do xyz, the book said I am an abc". There is a danger there self-limiting and making the same mistake putting others in bins.

a_bonobo• 2 days ago

Doesn't that happen with any first-year psychology or med-student, too? You have some basic knowledge of what could happen, which therefore means that it does happen, right now, here. It normally goes away with more experience and exposure, and yeah, some personal growth.

rjsw• 1 day ago

Not just first-year. I don't think psychologists ever lose their urge to perform experiments on any people they meet.

a_c• 2 days ago

People learn and relearn the core concepts from different paths. A recent trend due to coding agent is that people are learning software engineering is not about syntax and frameworks. It is just the way it is. People build up concepts with things they already understand. The same happens when someone doesn't use a book. It just went implicit and way harder for you to find the magic combo.

krystalgamer• 1 day ago

co-worker started reading "Extreme Ownership" and it improved his mindset and approach to problems. at the same time became extremely unbearable towards own team. if someone was complaining it was hard to get follow-up on a task from someone external he'd jump in and say "you're not owning it".

the tipping point for me was when he started preaching "Never Split the Difference". he'd gotten so cocky to the point he'd start meetings with "I already know how this is gonna end".

i don't mind these books as long as they come from a place of need, but it seems the main crowd are wannabe master manipulators. also, they can often be distilled to a couple chapters, not sure why they're so long.

StilesCrisis2• 1 day ago

The problem is when someone writes one viral blog post, then decides to pad it out and sell it as a book. If you can find the original post, you get the entire substance for free in ten minutes.

harryf• 1 day ago

Wow. The book we need should be titled something like "Of Software Teams and Cargo Cults"

"... a book had washed up on the shore... 'Extreme Ownership' ... soon the tribe was worshipping the book"

It happens over and over again in software history. I remember people running around panicking about TDD "But we only have 99.8% test coverage" until eventually it started to get shot down by "Show me the ROI on tests"

vjvjvjvjghv• 1 day ago

Reminds me of my sister doing a course in Nonviolent Communication and then for a while violently forcing all communication with her to follow these principles or she would get really angry.

jfyi• 1 day ago

the main crowd are wannabe master manipulators. also, they can often be distilled to a couple chapters, not sure why they're so long.

Yes! Very similar to my own criticisms. It's thinly veiled authoritarianism. Nobody handing you one of these books is ever doing it for your benefit despite framing it that way. The message always is, "this is the behavior I expect out of you".

As to the content density, they all tend to ape Dale Carnegie's work. Carnegie himself borrowing heavily from Ben Franklin, who actually had a lifetime of interesting anecdotes. If you don't have that, you spin out 80 pages worth of filler.

SmirkingRevenge• 1 day ago

So many of those books are basically like those "Here's one weird trick to succeed at X" style articles in book length form.

datadrivenangel• 2 days ago

One of the best pieces of work in this genre is Gerald Weinberg's the psychology of computer programming.

https://geraldmweinberg.com/Site/Programming_Psychology.html

blakeman8192• 2 days ago

Thanks! I read a sample of the book in the original post, and I couldn’t help myself from feeling increasingly weird about the way the author just kept laying the “you’re the smartest person at the company” and “your work is what makes the world go round” stuff on, really thick. It felt like I was being psychology’d into enjoying the book and unfortunately turned me away, even though I was interested. Will check this one out instead.

pjmorris• 2 days ago

And if that book doesn't appeal, Dr.Weinberg (he'd prefer 'Jerry' though) has an entire sub-genre of really useful books on humans doing software development. Three other favorites: 'How to Become a Technical Leader', the four-volume 'Quality Software Management', and the click-bait-titled but terrific 'The Secrets of Consulting: A Guide to Giving & Getting Advice Successfully'.

He joined IBM in the 50's, led the design of the telemetry system for NASA's Mercury project in the 60's, aimed to put humans at the center of software development with 'The Psychology of Computer Programming', and spent the rest of his life working on helping people do software development well together. IMO, any time you spend digging in to his large catalog will be well repaid.

smiggels10• 2 days ago

I really do not recommend to buy the ebook in this web shop. Its the worst UX I have ever seen in an online shop. Normally you would pay and then receive a link to download.

Here it goes like this:

- you receive an email: Please create an account on our website, you will benefit a lot from it

- then another email: If you want to get the book you just payed for, you must register first and then enter this code: #20 digit cryptic string#

- you create an account, eventually successfully bypass the dark pattern to seduce you to accept spam mails from them ("click here if you do not want to receive spam mails from us").

- You log in an see: "No books in your account", where can I enter the 20 digit cryptic code?

- Another look at the mails, oh, they said, "If you want to receive your book, you have to create an account on ANOTHER website

- You create another acccount

- Log in, you see a message: "Please click on the link in your confirmation mail"

- no confirmation mail received

- Go back, click on "send confirmation mail again"

- Some time later, confirmation mail arrives. But just a mail with header and footer but no content, no link to click

- Try again, same result

- Obviously something went wrong, can i report the bug somewhere? Of course not!

I am still waiting for my book.

internet_points2• 2 days ago

ouf :( maybe original link should be changed to https://www.drcathicks.com/ ?

N_Lens• 2 days ago

libgen

xutopia• 1 day ago

I'm unable to purchase it there even though it is way cheaper than getting it elsewhere because of blocking bugs with my Canadian physical address. Postal code which is valid is considered invalid... my city name which includes a dash is considered invalid. The postal code is blocking.

NoGravitas• 1 day ago

I preordered the paperback through bookshop.org the day before it was released. Received it in the mail a day or two after it was released. No bad/unexpected UI.

internet_points2• 2 days ago

The author Cat Hicks also co-hosts https://www.changetechnically.fyi/ which has some interesting episodes, e.g. https://www.changetechnically.fyi/2396236/episodes/17541876-...

In https://mastodon.social/@grimalkina/116743715688970777 she gives a concise explanation of the minimal groups paradigm where "People assigned to arbitrary groups immediately form strong allegiances, even though they haven’t been given any other psychologically meaningful cues about their group"

trolleski• 2 days ago

But isn't AI replacing all of us this time next week?

MrVandemar• 2 days ago

This book looks super interesting.

I wish I was on a software team so I could justify buying it. But but my $DAY_JOB is answering phones and fixing printer-jams in a medical practice, so not a lot of application there.

ambicapter4• 1 day ago

I hereby give you permission to buy the book and read it for funsies.

joshcsimmons• 1 day ago

yikes. this is very out of touch with current trends.

i respect writing a book - ive written three, but if there’s a time when most tech leadership cared LESS about understanding software team psychology, i havent seen it.

truly a sad state of things. i love this topic and plan to read the book but i dont expect most people to care - the only mantra in software rn is to go as fast as possible on shitty features and burn people out.

of course above assessment is about the general state of big tech co’s. some pockets of sanity out there still at smaller companies but not many!

ambicapter4• 1 day ago

Why is that a "yikes"? You don't always have to be "trendy".

pluc2• 1 day ago

Psychology of AI Software Teams

taking preorders now

rramadass2• 1 day ago

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychology_of_programming;

1) Human Technology (online journal, papers) - https://ht.csr-pub.eu/index.php/ht/index

2) Psychology of Programming Interest Group (papers) - https://www.ppig.org/

3) Cognitive Biases in Software Engineering: A Systematic Mapping Study - https://arxiv.org/abs/1707.03869

storoj• 10 hours ago

(3) has an exciting title but the methodology is: "we observed 10 (ten) developers ..."

rramadass2• 10 hours ago

What are you talking about?

That phrase does not occur in the paper linked to in (3) above (i.e. "Cognitive Biases in Software Engineering: A Systematic Mapping Study") at all.

The Abstract itself states;

One source of software project challenges and failures is the systematic errors introduced by human cognitive biases. Although extensively explored in cognitive psychology, investigations concerning cognitive biases have only recently gained popularity in software engineering research. This paper therefore systematically maps, aggregates and synthesizes the literature on cognitive biases in software engineering to generate a comprehensive body of knowledge, understand state of the art research and provide guidelines for future research and practise. Focusing on bias antecedents, effects and mitigation techniques, we identified 65 articles (published between 1990 and 2016), which investigate 37 cognitive biases. Despite strong and increasing interest, the results reveal a scarcity of research on mitigation techniques and poor theoretical foundations in understanding and interpreting cognitive biases. Although bias-related research has generated many new insights in the software engineering community, specific bias mitigation techniques are still needed for software professionals to overcome the deleterious effects of cognitive biases on their work.

neilk• 1 day ago

I haven’t read this book, but I noticed the author makes much of their empirical research available with a CC license.

https://catharsisinsight.com/ , scroll way down to “Developers deserve science.”

I found this one interesting. The authors note that often, developers avoid code reviews, and engage in a lot of unproductive behavior around them. They claim that a pretty simple one-session cognitive-behavioral intervention can dramatically change that.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10664-024-10550-9

Anyway, the longer I work in this field the more I see psychology as the dominant factor in team productivity. Assuming the job is doable, and you’ve hired good people, and the team has adequate control over their own work, that’s what’s left. You might argue that tool use or team practices are more important, but what stops you from adopting them or using them correctly? What stops you from learning from your mistakes? Usually something about your group psychology.

SpaceL10n• 1 day ago

A lot of smaller organizations really struggle to collaborate with their software teams. Collaboration is hard, in general, but especially so if the organization isn't fluent and competent in software product development. Before you go diving into the psychology of your sad and despondent software team, look around them. Are the people working with them capable of supporting and engaging with these engineers?

rotariuvladimir• 12 hours ago

software teams treat trust and conflict as soft concerns, then seem surprised when delivery slows and people leave. the subject is real, but the value depends on whether the book stays empircal instead of becoming another set of management scripts. useful frameworks help you notice failure modes, not give you new vocabulary to impose on poeple.

The Psychology of Software Teams

Related Stories