A great engineering culture results in getting things done (software delivered), done right (quality) and happy people and customers. It will also help you attract the right talent and maintain your competitive advantage. When not taken seriously, engineering culture is also an important reason why Conway’s law can flourish and lead to accidental complexity.

This accidental complexity is the result of socio-technical complexity. We try to optimise our IT architecture and organisational structure by creating autonomous teams, adopting the latest buzzword and literally breaking down office walls. All with the best of intentions, but somehow we are still waiting for that other team that still hasn’t delivered what they were supposed to deliver. Meanwhile, we cannot move quickly on new business opportunities because we’re stuck with many handovers between people and teams. Sounds familiar?

This technical complexity we’re so desperate to solve, is the result of social complexity. Subconscious decisions based on cognitive bias and heuristics that affect all other aspects of our socio-technical systems. Then, before you know it, you’re at a cognitive bias party where you don’t know any of the guests, didn’t get any form of context and you have to make your way through it.

In this talk, Evelyn will be your host at this cognitive bias party by introducing you to some of the most important guests. She will discuss the misconception, the truth and way of working of several cognitive biases and heuristics, and relate them to real life stories from down the trenches. After this talk, you’ll be able to recognise and reflect on socio-technical complexity and understand how tackling it can help improving your engineering culture.