Have you ever not made a much-needed change because you were afraid of breaking something? Caution is wise, but too much fear can leave even the most agile of software organizations with a crippling aversion to change. This talk will discuss what makes us scared, why it hurts us, and my experiences helping a team I managed get rid of some of our fears.

1. 👻👻👻
Fear Driven Development
😨😨😨
Ryan Kennedy -­‐ @rckenned
✨💖🌈 🌈💖✨

2. Slides are online
h/p://www.slideshare.net/rckenned/
fear-­‐driven-­‐development-­‐49842984

3. This is an emoji-heavy
presentation
[👌I hope that’s okay with everyone👌]

4. I’m Ryan Kennedy
Backend Engineer at 🔮 Magic Vibes 🔮

5. Ada
Initiative
Advisor

6. In my past life…
📬 Yahoo! Mail Web Service Engineer
🎥 NePlix Search and API Engineer
💼 Yammer Infrastructure Engineer/Director

7. What is fear?
A feeling of anxiety concerning the
outcome of something or the safety and
well-­‐being of someone

8. What causes fear?
[❓]

9. Specific fears develop
as a result of learning
[😭trauma😭]

10. Certain fears are more
common than others
[🍩 preparedness 🎂]

11. Two individuals have a tendency
to emotionally converge
[☣emoVonal contagion😷]

12. Fear fosters flight: A mechanism for fear contagion
when perceiving emoVon expressed by a whole body
–Gelder et al.
“observing fearful body expressions
produces increased acVvity in brain
areas narrowly associated with
emoVonal processes and that this
emoVon-­‐related acVvity occurs
together with acVvaVon of areas
linked with representaVon of acVon
and movement”

13. tl;dr fear is contagious
[☣]

14. Negative emotions are usually
more infectious than positive ones
[🐵vesVgial insVnct🐵]

15. Negative emotions elicit
a stronger reaction
[🚫negaVvity bias🚫]

16. This is terrifying for a large
engineering organization
[😷💉the heebie jeebie flu💉😷]

17. Fear is additive
🐍=😨
✈=😱
🐍➕✈=🚨🆘🚫

18. Fear compounds
[📈 📈]

19. What are humans afraid
of?
[💀death…💸taxes…🎲unpredictability]
and…

20. PUBLIC SPEAKING
[😶💬🎥]

21. I'm afraid of databases
[💻 yet I was paid to build one 💵]

22. What do developers
fear?
[💻😱]

23. Refactoring
[🚧🔧🔨💣]

24. Performance
[⏰🚅✈🚤]

25. Scale
[🐳]

26. Upgrades
[🆕]

27. Deploying
[📦🚢]

28. The Unknown
[❓]

29. What's the downside
of fear in software
development?

30. Fear induced loss of
agility
[🏃🔜🚶]

31. Fear creates local
maximums
😱
💖
👻

32. Compounding fears
make matters worse
😱
💖
👻

33. Fear erects barricades
around the code and
systems that need the
most attention

34. Ways of dealing with
these fears

35. Exposure therapy
exposure to the feared object or
context, without any danger, in order
to overcome anxiety

36. Reproducible, extensive
testing as a safety harness
[💡🔆]

37. Development and
staging as safe zones
[⚾⛳]

38. Build confidence on
non-critical systems
[🎠]

39. Double dispatch when replacing
existing functionality
[✌]

40. Hack Day!
[🔎]

41. Sharing my fears
Someone else has probably seen or
done this or something like it before

42. Decatastrophizing
"If the feared event or object
happened, what would occur then?"

43. Organizational selective
amnesia
[let the new person do it 🔴👕]

44. Where are the managers,
architects, leads, etc. at?
[👉this talk is actually for/about you👈]

45. Are you a source of fear?
[👤👈]

46. Make time to test
[⏳]

47. Make time for research
[⏳]

48. Make time for
maintenance
[⏳]

49. None of this should impact
anyone’s personal life
[]

50. Thank you
~~~ 🙇🙏💕~~~
💯