WDD: a new development paradigm

We will talk about a new development technique called WDD or Worries Driven Development.
You might know another couple of *DD techniques: TDD and DDD but they are by far less powerful than WDD.

TDD or Test Driven Development has been invented by Ken Beck (@kentbeck). As Wikipedia states “is a software development process that relies on the repetition of a very short development cycle: first the developer writes an (initially failing) automated test case that defines a desired improvement or new function, then produces the minimum amount of code to pass that test and finally refactors the new code to acceptable standards”.

DDD or Domain Drive Design is a little more recent, especially it’s hype, and as Wikipedia says “is an approach to develop software for complex needs by connecting the implementation to an evolving model.The premise of domain-driven design is the following: Placing the project’s primary focus on the core domain and domain logic; Basing complex designs on a model of the domain; Initiating a creative collaboration between technical and domain experts to iteratively refine a conceptual model that addresses particular domain problems.” In Italy Alberto Barndolini (@ziobrando) is really good at it!

WDD is more powerful because it works at a deeper level. It acts at the level of motivations. We tend to do what we do for one of two reasons: to seek pleasure or to avoid pain.
Now our culture tend to push us to the ‘avoid pain’ side so we tend to use it more often as a motivation to do what we do. So what’s more relieving than solving a problem to ‘avoid pain’?
That’s where WDD come from: we do what worries us. Or better we do, schedule, put in priority what can have consequences that can worry us.
So the algorithm is: if you don’t have it, create a problem, throw it in the future, communicate it so that everybody can be worried. Now you are ready to make a lot of overtime to solve it to ‘avoid pain’.

The secret? WDD is not that new: it is quite often used as a primary development paradigm in many offices of medium-big corporations. And it works …. maybe.

PierG

It’s all about consequences

We are strange animals: part for ‘nature’ part for culture we learn through an action-reaction mechanism.

It’s all about feedback, it’s all about consequences: we do something, something happens due to what we do (or don’t do), we see these consequences and decide what to do.

Do you want to mess up a team, or your son, or a person you have a relationship with? Start not giving feedback or better giving random one: the consequence are certain … #fail

PierG

p.s. Please note that sometimes not giving feedback deliberately is a feedback itself (remember: you cannot not communicate)

Let them make choices

Last Friday was the last day of kindergarten for my son: starting from September he will go to school.

When we arrived at the kindergarten he was surprisingly sad: he grabbed me, hugged me, he held me tight. After few seconds I said ‘Giammy it’s time to go for me’ … ‘I have to go’ … ‘I have to go to work now or I’ll be late’ … but no answer and no change in his behavior. For minutes he stayed hooked to my leg.

So I set down and said ‘ok, I will not leave until you are ready. Do YOU want to tell me when you are ready?’. He nodded.

After few seconds (much less than expected) he let me go and said ‘ok, you can go now’ and run to play with some friends.

The simple fact that I offered him the power to choose, moved him from his current status to a more ‘solution oriented’ frame. Can you imagine a situation in which you can use this strategy?

PierG

p.s. To tell the truth, I did all this stuff in an unconscious way: I realized it just after analyzing what had happened. Cool 🙂

It’s my fault

It happens that when a problem arises, we get stuck in discussions and it seems there is no way to find a solution to that problem. Often it is because we are looking for the guilty!

So whatever your current problem is, let me tell you this: “sorry, it is my fault” … and now feel free to relax and focus on finding the solution!

The power of reframing 🙂

PierG

p.s. Feel free to use this technique your own even if it’s my fault and not your 😉

Everything is feedback: a definition of NLP

Courtesy of woodleywonderworks, Some Rights Reserved

Bandler says that everything is hypnosis, Erickson said that nothing is hypnosis: I don’t know, they are probably both right and wrong.

What I think is that everything is feedback.

We continuously react and adapt to context. And in the context of people we can enter in a more active or passive way.

As we cannot “not to communicate”, people react and adapt to our communication: being able to notice it or not, being able use the language to explore and stimulate people’s feedback … is another story. And it is a veeeery interesting story 🙂

Have you ever heard of NLP? Everything is feedback: a definition of NLP.

PierG

Decision making techniques

 
Courtesy of Haiko, Some Rights Reserved

There are many decisions making techniques: most of the them are based on the decision making process. They teach you how to split, to partitionate, to analyze, to weight, to make bifurcation or things like that.

Few of them are not dealing with the most important ingredient of decision making that’s also one of the most widely diffused illness of our management: (lack of) attitude.

Making decisions is like any of our physical and intellectual skills (mind and body are the same stuff, right?): if you want to be good at it, if have to do it and then do it and then do it and then ….

So the best decision making technique is not a technique but a mantra you will repeat day after day, hour after hour starting from now: "decide early, decide small!", "decide early, decide small!", "decide early, decide small!" …

PierG

Hypnotic Message

By uncwshelley

During my commute, I was listening to the radio. I was not focused at all to what the radio was playing while I got hit by something … a commercial!

Speaker <<My mom used to say it about the undershirt>>
Mom <<You can’t get out without it>>
Speaker <<My friends used to say it about the bike>>
Friend <<You can’t get out without it>>
Speaker <<My boss used to say it about the tie>>
Boss <<You can’t get out without it>>
Speaker … commercial message … <<You can’t get out without it>>

In the plot I was not the target of the message but what my mind unconsciously heard was a clear message <<YOU can’t get out without it>>

Very powerful technique! It’s a mix of what are called ’embedded commands’ and ‘yes set’ pattern.

The only small complain I make is that they’d better use a non negative sentence. Our brain doesn’t cope very well with negative stuff. If I write <<think at a blue tree>>, you imagine (so you DO think at) a blue tree and then you try not to think at it 🙂

So a even better message might have been <<You need it to get out>> <<You must have it to get out>> or something like that.

PierG