Zen and the Art of Software Development

Going through the requirements gathering process recently to develop a comprehensive set of user stories, I argued strongly for a particular feature to work in a certain way.  I'm on this team because of my knowledge of similar systems, and this was the way we'd done it before and it made sense then and so needed to be done that way again.  I argued forcefully for a simple feature in the system to be a multiple step process.

But when we came to examine each of the steps in detail, I realized that in this system, it didn't need to be so complex.  A simpler approach would have been much better.  But the others on the team, convinced by my previous argument, retained the multiple steps and they remain there to haunt me as a symbol of my own ego.

One of the things that can derail a software development project (or any project for that matter) is large egos.  But particularly when creating a new software application from scratch, there is a delicate balance between many variables such as customer needs, project scope, organizational needs, budget, timeline, market changes.  In this situation, people have to work together collaboratively and finely bring those variables together to the best solution.

You can duke it out, and the person with the strongest ideas win.  That's fine if the one with the strongest ideas is a true innovator, like Steve Jobs, who spends his or her time questioning how things work, envisaging new ways of doing things, and testing those ideas out.  But if like many of us, you are more of a plodder, then really utilizing the collective wisdom of the team comes in.

In Buddhism, there is a term, the 'undefended heart'.  It's the result of putting down one's defenses, putting aside one's strong opinions, and instead letting things in.  In modern management speak, we might refer to it as deep listening.  Such listening goes beyond the ears and the brain, and allows new ideas to penetrate into the heart, to be felt as something that can move us, actually touch our heart.  The undefended heart is us at our most vulnerable, and most creative.

Most of  the time I am good at listening, and letting different opinions flow through me, and really working to see all the points of view and letting the best solution emerge.  Most of the time I work to have an undefended heart.  And when I don't, when I stick to my guns and get my way, sometimes the monument to that stays around to remind me.