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Developing Fast, Thinking Slow
How Daniel Kahneman Changed Software Development (for me at least)
The planning fallacy is that you make a plan, which is usually a best-case scenario. Then you assume that the outcome will follow your plan, even when you should know better. Daniel Kahneman
Kahneman, Amos Tversky and Charlie Munger helped me understand humans don’t act rationally and logically. Understanding this can help you understand the craziness of software development.
People believe they are rational but most people are acting on instinct, bias or are emotionally driven. It was Kahneman and Tversky whose studies proved humans don’t decide rationally.
- Thinking, Fast and Slow (affiliate link)
- Noise (affiliate link)
When people decide they could make errors of judgement bias, fallacies and shortcuts the brain uses to survive the physical world.
You can’t stop the brain sabotaging decisions, but you can stop and think about it the decisions and override those decisions with rational logic.
Kahneman says the mind has 2 systems
- System 1 — works automatically and quickly
- System 2 — This is when you think and use logic.
The brain uses the lower powered/faster system 1 brain to allow humans to react and make fast decisions.
Below are some examples covered in Kahneman’s writings.
Anchors
Numbers spoken can act as anchors to thinking. e.g. When someone says a high number, it influences your thinking because the number anchors you.
Anchoring works even if you are looking at unrelated numbers on something different. Developers should be careful what they are looking at before estimating because it might unconsciously boost up or bring down your estimates.
Jumping to conclusions
We think what we see is all there is. We find evidence to support our ideas/beliefs and ignore evidence that contradicts our ideas.
