Empathy The Key To A Successful Software Project - Oreilly Media

Empathy: The key to a successful software project - O'Reilly Media
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Empathy: The key to a

successful software
project
Developers should dig deep to understand their project's
stakeholders.
By
Gregory Brown, June 22, 2016
In recent years, most businesses

have become aware of the
disastrous consequences of
throwing requirements over the
wall to software developers.
Although the industry hasnt come
Seating
(source: Pixabay).
close to converging on a solution to

this problem, there is at least some
basic understanding that a software developer
ought to be a whole lot more than just a code
monkeythey need to be actively involved in
project planning, too.
https://www.oreilly.com/ideas/empathy-the-key-to-a-successful-software-project[7/1/2016 1:13:49 PM]
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But is the current generation of programmers well

prepared to handle a dual role as both a technical
implementer and a business analyst? Id argue
that while some are, most are not. And so even
though we have been given an opportunity to
change things for the better, most of us are still
wading around in mud.
To be fair, most programmers are far enough
down the path to better customer service to know
that in order to properly solve a problem, you need
to understand it well. To do that, you need to
spend some time exploring the surrounding
context, and you need to have a decent
understanding of the needs and motivations of the
projects stakeholders.
The problem we run into (and its basically
BOOK
the same blindspot that our business

partners have) is that we tend to think of
the person who signs our checks or
conducts our performance reviews as our
primary stakeholder. We shape our work
around their expectations, seek to
negotiate a balance between our own idea
of what good work is and what will make
that person happy, etc. And when we do
this part well, were even rewarded for it!
This is empathy played out locally, and its
better than no empathy at all. But it is not
Programming Beyond
Practices
By Gregory Brown
Shop now arrow
right
enough to safeguard the success of even

relatively simple software projects. To get
beyond this point, you need to look at the work you
do in a much more holistic fashion. Rather than
getting too philosophical, Ill attempt to illustrate
with a practical example.
Suppose that youre a freelance software
developer working for a mid-sized agency,
and your current client is a business owner
for a medical practice. The project youre
working on is a tool that will help their
scheduling manager plan shifts for doctors
and nurses.
Take a moment and think through who the most
important stakeholder in this scenario is, and write
it down. Well come back to it later.
The business owner asks you to implement
a feature that will check the clinics shift
schedule against their appointment book, to
make sure that correct staffing levels are
maintained at all times. You are provided
with a brief outline of the task, and are
encouraged to ask questions or make
suggestions as needed before starting your
work.
One way to look at this project to assume it will be
success as long as all of the following conditions
are met:
The scheduling manager is happy with the
feature you built for them
The feature was built within a budget that the
clinics owner will approve
The budget is large enough to be worth the time
investment for your agency
To make this happen, youd need to understand
and balance the needs of these three key
stakeholders, and then youd need to deliver on
whatever promises you made to each of them.
Easier said than done, but fairly clear cut, right?
Wrong. Were only halfway down the value
chain, and if we dont go deeper, we cant know
whether our efforts will truly pay off.
One key insight that will get you closer to the heart
of the problem is that the only way to make the
scheduling managers job easier and also obtain a
good business outcome is to consider the needs of
the doctors and nurses. At a minimum, theyll need
to be clearly notified about any changes that are
being made to their schedulebut a good system
would most likely also provide some sort of direct
way to communicate availability and approve or
reject proposed changes.
So then, are the doctors and nurses the most
important stakeholders? Nope! Theyre certainly
close to center of the action, but theres one more

group that is far more critical to serve well. Who is
it?
Maybe the answer is obvious to you or maybe it
isnt. The most important stakeholders in this
particular scenario are the patients! Although they
sit five degrees of separation away from you, they
are ultimately the ones that will determine whether
your work was helpful, harmful, or neutral.
Recognizing this point, some useful
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questions arise:
How will patients be informed if and
when theyre reassigned to a different
provider? Will they be given an
opportunity to reschedule their
appointment if they strongly prefer
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seeing the provider they had originally

booked their appointment with?
Will the scheduling tool work well
enough to make sure gaps in coverage
are filled reliably? Or will the patients
end up with long wait times due to
overbooked schedules that arise from understaffing?
Is this new feature likely to improve the quality of
service for patients, or is it mainly a matter of
increasing administrative efficiency? If the latter,
then are there other tools that can be built which
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might address both goals at once?

Having fully unraveled this thread, you then would
need to work your way back all the way to where
you started from; convincing stakeholders at every
level along the chain to consider the needs of
those who sit upstream from them, while also
trying to meet their own expectations. In doing this,
youd need to communicate in many different
ways, because each of these stakeholders have
little in common with each other.
Sounds hard, right? It is hard. But this is what
empathy looks like at scale, and its something that
separates the most successful software projects
from the endless parade of solutions in search of
problems.
You may be thinking that as an individual
developer, your ability to navigate and influence
such a complex chain of responsibilities is limited
and you may be right. But by simply thinking
about these ideas and asking good questions, you
can use the influence you do have to change your
work for the better.
Editor's note: Gregory Brown is working on a book
about the non-code aspects of software
development, called "Programming Beyond
Practices." Follow its progress here.
Article image: Seating
(source: Pixabay).
Gregory Brown
Gregory Brown has run the independently published Practicing Ruby journal since
2010, and is the original author of the popular Prawn PDF generation library. In his
consulting projects, Gregory has worked with key stakeholders in companies of all
sizes to identify core business problems that can be solved with as little code as
possible. Gregory's relentless focus on the 90% of programming work that isn't just
writing code is what lead him to begin working on Programming Beyond Practices.
Vplay
Looking back and looking ahead with

Ada Lovelace Day's founder
Ada Lovelace, an indirect and

reciprocal influence
By
Mac Slocum
By
Amy Jollymore
Suw Charman-Anderson, founder of Ada
Celebrating women in technology and the curious
Lovelace Day, explains why she started the day
mind of Ada Lovelace
and why it's caught on.
The five shouts of good programmers OSCON in Amsterdam 2015

By
Abraham Marin-Perez
livestream
play
A set of reactions to the most common
Watch keynotes from OSCON in Amsterdam
programming scenarios that tend to turn software
2015.
projects sour.
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