Engineering the Future of Software
29–31 Oct 2018: Tutorials & Conference
31 Oct–1 Nov 2018: Training
London, UK

Why happy developers and strong feedback loops create the best products

Yiannis Kanellopoulos (Code4Thought), Evelyn van Kelle (Software Improvement Group)
13:15–14:05 Monday, 29 October 2018
Fundamentals
 Location: Park Suite (St. James / Regents)
Secondary topics:  Best Practice
Average rating: ***..
(3.75, 12 ratings)

Who is this presentation for?

  • Developers, architects, lead architects, and managers

What you'll learn

  • Understand how focusing on people (developer happiness, solid communication, strong feedback loops, etc.) helps you create high-quality products

Description

We’ve all been there. A project needs to be delivered next month, but your development team knows that it will take at least two more months to complete. How do you ensure that your team and the key stakeholders are aligned and have a shared sense of reality while also managing expectations successfully, avoiding frustrations, and creating high-quality products?

Good quality products come from happy developers and properly working feedback loops. Timely feedback can mean clarity over confusion; a validation of assumptions can mean shorter development cycles. When it comes to feedback loops, there’s a false dichotomy between full automation and human intervention. Successful quality control combines tool-based measurement with manual review and discussion. At the end of the day, the most effective feedback loops are a mixture of daily best practices, automation, tools, and human intervention.

Yiannis Kanellopoulos and Evelyn van Kelle discuss the factors that determine developer happiness, explore the crucial relationship between developer happiness and code quality, and explain how to enhance overall code quality through a blend of interpersonal communication and tool-based analysis.

Photo of Yiannis Kanellopoulos

Yiannis Kanellopoulos

Code4Thought

Yiannis Kanellopoulos has spent the better part of two decades analyzing and evaluating software systems in order to help organizations address any potential risks and flaws related to them. (In his experience, these risks or flaws are always due to human involvement.) With Code4Thought, Yiannis is turning his expertise into democratizing technology by rendering algorithms transparent and helping organizations become accountable. Targeted outcomes of his work include building trust between the organization utilizing the algorithms and those affected by its output and rendering the algorithms more persuasive, since their reasoning will be easier to explain. He’s also a founding member of Orange Grove Patras, a business incubator sponsored by the Dutch Embassy in Greece to promote entrepreneurship and counter youth unemployment. Yiannis holds a PhD in computer science from the University of Manchester.

Photo of Evelyn van Kelle

Evelyn van Kelle

Software Improvement Group

Evelyn van Kelle is content lead at the Software Improvement Group (SIG), where she focuses on the interplay between technical issues and social factors. During her MSc study at Tilburg University, Evelyn was delighted to discover that the world of IT becomes exponentially stronger with sound communication. Her curiosity and predilection for data drive her to design content that is both meaningful and packed with solutions for technology leaders around the world.