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Think Tank 75 Minutes

Enabling Flow in Software Development

David Harvey

All of us have had the experience of focussing so intently on an activity that sense of time and self seem to vanish. This phenomenon has been christened flow. In his book Flow: the Psychology of Optimal Experience psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihaly describes his extensive research in this area and draws several important conclusions affecting work, play and culture.

In this think tank participants will be asked to share their experiences of flow in any aspect of their lives, and will use these as a springboard to propose ways of improving our ability to reach this state in the work we do developing software.

David Harvey (David.Harvey@wdr.com)

Waburg Dillon Read

David Harvey has over a decade of experience in designing, building and managing the development of software. He is currently Global Architect for ORB Infrastructure at Warburg Dillon Read, and has worked throughout the City of London on advanced middleware libraries and architectures. As a consultant he has helped organisations make effective use of object technology, and has delivered introductory and advanced training courses in C++ and OO design. He has presented sessions at the OT conference and elsewhere on C++, patterns, distributed computing and software architecture, jointly (with Paul Dyson) presented the UK's first workshop on Extreme Programming, and was conference chair for OT99.

Topics

Benefits

  • Revitalise the experience of work

    Session: Think Tank 75 Minutes Level: any
    Audience: Anyone involved in developing or managing the development ofsoftware.

    		Max 24

    Material

    Overview and slides for conference materials

    The session will also need some large self-adhesive labels and coloured pens for a brief introductory activity, and some packets of small coloured stickers (red and green).

    Delivery

    The session will deliver a ranked list of actions aimed at restoring flow to the workplace.

    Format

    Think-tank: a small amount of presentation to set the context and the problem, followed by alternating work in small groups on specific tasks and whole-group review.

    The session is based around three activities. Each of these is undertaken in groups of 3, and will involve a short period of individual reflection (2 minutes), followed by discussion and write-up (8 minutes). The activities are as follows

    1. When did you feel most alive?
      Individually, write a sentence describing a flow experience you have had. As a group discuss these. Were they solitary or group efforts? Work or out-of-work? Are there any significant similarities or differences? For one, two or all three of these, come up with what you regard to be an important characteristic of the experience.

    2. What prevents flow?
      In the same way as the previous group, identify and discuss aspects of character, activity and environment that prevent flow.

    3. How can we promote flow in our work?
      Although the flow experience is reported in the workplace, many aspects of our working lives prevent this. Identify and discuss up to three proposals for improving the environment or practice of our work, or indeed our attitude to it, in order to promote flow.

    Voting
    The last of these activities will result in concrete proposals, each on a separate piece of A3 or flipchart paper. These will be positioned around the room (on walls or flip-charts) for two rounds of voting. Each participant has 10 red and 10 green stickers. In the first round, red stickers are used. During this round, if any pair of proposals is pretty much identical, then one of the pair is moved to the location of the other (any participant may do this). Participants are asked to distribute their 10 red stickers in any way they want - from all 10 on a single proposal to one on each of ten (all stickers must be used) Following the red voting round, we'll rank and review the result, then undertake a second round of voting on the same principles using green stickers (the only difference is that in this round proposals cannot be merged). Delegates may elect to change their mind based on merged proposals or what the primary ranking reveals - for the final ranking only the green sticker count is used.

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