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Track Talk W8

Cut the Cheese: hidden costs of downsizing software teams

Dermot Canniffe

11:30 - 12:15 CEST Wednesday 4th June

There have been several books that instruct the reader on ways they can adapt to key events in their lives. One of these is “Who Moved My Cheese?” by Spencer Johnson which puts forward a cheese-based parable to promote the idea that change is good and should be embraced by those in the workforce.
In spite of the book being distributed to employees during workforce reductions, “downsizing” is not a change that can – or should – be easily embraced by engineers in a software team.

The impacts – personal and organisational – are manifold, leading to disastrous reduction in productivity and resulting in poor value for the company or organisation that conducts the downsizing. In this talk, we will note some of these impacts, from the obvious to the more obscure. We will examine data contributed by actual development team members on the effect such downsizing has had on them and their team. And we will consider ways of framing the problem of adapting to a downsized organisation in ways that make the disadvantage clear to key stakeholders.

Expect a frank discussion of increased stress, reduced output, marginal profits, and several cheese-related puns. It is hoped that it will give rise to a Gouda conversation.

What you will learn

  1. Downsizing Propaganda cannot stand against real research and outcomes
  2. The various impacts of downsizing undermine any proposed benefit
  3. Methods to share this information with others in an organisation

Session Details

  • Introductory
  • 45 minutes
  • Includes 15 mins Q&A
  • Leading/mentoring people
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Check out this video from Dermot Canniffe to hear more about his talk, ‘Cut the Cheese: hidden costs of downsizing software teams’.

We look forward to welcoming you to EuroSTAR 2023.

Session Speaker

Dermot Canniffe

Dermot Canniffe

Inflectra, Ireland

Dermot’s been a part of the software industry since 2001 and doesn’t seem to be quitting any time soon. He has been known to ramble on about subjects that range from BDD, cognitive biases and Agile test automation. He’s very likely to use sci-fi metaphors when discussing these subjects.

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