Track Talk W2

Developing on Mount Stupid

Dermot Canniffe

11:00-11:45 CEST Wednesday 14th June

When we learn new stuff we develop mental heuristics to streamline the process in future. Some of these are beneficial, and some of them result in cognitive bias. Cognitive biases can affect the process of developing software negatively. One in particular – the Dunning-Kruger Effect – describes that illusory feeling of confidence we get when we actually know very little about our chosen domain. Obviously, unmanaged, this can have a negative impact on your delivery, code quality and especially team morale. I will discuss this cognitive bias and its impact, and also some strategies that may be employed to lessen the risk of falling foul of the Dunning-Kruger Effect.