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Anxiety in product development

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Re: Anxiety in product development

#11

Post by pogorniy »

openfuture wrote: post #5

Funny, to see this pop up finally. I've been talking (with my friends) about how all development is 'fear driven development' for quite a while now. Of course I don't mean just software development, but the way it manifests in software is instructive. The different fear responses range from formal methods to FOMO but in general we latch onto something as a source of comfort. Conway's law expanded to how you communica…

> development is 'fear driven development' for quite a while now.

Do you have examples of fear-driven and non-fear development approaches? And what flavors of "non-fear" development are possible?

Re: Anxiety in product development

#12

Post by gtm1260 »

As a new developer, I think I fall into this trap a lot! I always don't want to touch other people's methods or introduce bugs, so I only make tiny, tiny little changes before thoroughly testing everything. It really slows me down.

Re: Anxiety in product development

#14

Post by sradman »

I’ve often thought that pair programming and daily stand ups work because they align with our natural social behavior. This could be fear or anxiety driven but it doesn’t have to be. Do scientists have a non-intrusive and accurate mechanism to continuously monitor the endocrine/nervous system response over hours/days? Working on a software project is often an emotional roller coaster ride.

Re: Anxiety in product development

#15

Post by jmhnilbog »

fidrelity wrote: post #4
jmhnilbog wrote: post #2

While I agree with this framing of the problem, it feels like another expression of dysfunction in development increasing as direct interaction with clients and users decreases.

Author here. I think you have a point here. Anxiety can certainly stem from the point you mentioned. But I also think anxiety from other sources can affect your development negatively.

Agreed.

Anxiety can also be expressed as a realization that what's being worked on is useless, adds negative value, or just personally unfulfilling or unimportant. Cops firing teargas at peaceful protesters a few blocks away has cause me a good deal of that flavor of anxiety, which I don't think is necessarily a negative outcome. Do you have any insights along those lines?

Re: Anxiety in product development

#16

Post by artsyca »

pogorniy wrote: post #11
openfuture wrote: post #5

Funny, to see this pop up finally. I've been talking (with my friends) about how all development is 'fear driven development' for quite a while now. Of course I don't mean just software development, but the way it manifests in software is instructive. The different fear responses range from formal methods to FOMO but in general we latch onto something as a source of comfort. Conway's law expanded to how you communica…

> development is 'fear driven development' for quite a while now. Do you have examples of fear-driven and non-fear development approaches? And what flavors of "non-fear" development are possible?

Yea dude it's supposed to be a fun learning experience. We got into software so we wouldn't have to work, not to be driven and crunched to death by self serving management culture.

Look at all the early software pioneers do they look like they were suffering from constant anxiety vis how productive they have been for decades?

Re: Anxiety in product development

#17

Post by cjfd »

Fear is just a source of information. The emotions we have we have because they provide information in one way or another. Much like the senses. One cannot let oneself be paralyzed by it, though. If one doesn't dare to refactor anything because of fear, something needs to happen. E.g., one needs to be able to test more effectively or something like that.

Re: Anxiety in product development

#18

Post by neutronicus »

I think the serenity prayer, sans unnecessary theological content, is relevant here.

Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the ones I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

For a lot of software products, there is no winning in the long run. You've got good product-market fit and customer loyalty, but your code base is a huge mess and the hard technical problems are solved by third-party libraries. Your tech is a liability and eventually someone with better tech will be smart enough to study your customers, or the students who will eventually replace your inevitably-retiring customers on the front lines and push adoption going forward.

And this is okay. The advantage corporations have over government institutions is that they can be created and destroyed with much less friction.

If you're lucky, your growth curve looks like double-sigmoid table-top. Probably it looks like an asymmetric Gaussian. What it doesn't look like is an exponential. Understand where your product is in its life-cycle, and maximize ROI.

Re: Anxiety in product development

#19

Post by hammock »

cjfd wrote: post #17

Fear is just a source of information. The emotions we have we have because they provide information in one way or another. Much like the senses. One cannot let oneself be paralyzed by it, though. If one doesn't dare to refactor anything because of fear, something needs to happen. E.g., one needs to be able to test more effectively or something like that.

Fear is not raw intelligence, and rather a type of intelligence assessment.

Re: Anxiety in product development

#20

Post by sjg007 »

openfuture wrote: post #5

Funny, to see this pop up finally. I've been talking (with my friends) about how all development is 'fear driven development' for quite a while now. Of course I don't mean just software development, but the way it manifests in software is instructive. The different fear responses range from formal methods to FOMO but in general we latch onto something as a source of comfort. Conway's law expanded to how you communica…

> Conway's law expanded to how you communicate with yourself.

Can you please clarify?

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