I have not contributed to this newsletter in a couple of years. Initially, I started writing under the title 'People First Engineering', however, I have recently renamed the publication 'Human-Centric Engineering' to underscore the significance of incorporating the human element into the design of engineering ecosystems. This shift reflects a commitment to addressing our essential human needs while acknowledging our inherent human fallibilities.
Collaboration
Another change has been the realisation that so much more can be achieved through collaboration rather than working alone. While exploring the human side of software engineering, I’ve met
who shares similar views and experiences to mine, and we’ve decided to partner up on this project.Together, we will contribute to this newsletter, sharing our thoughts, insights, and experiences regarding the psychological and social dynamics inherent in software engineering. Our goal is to help engineering teams and managers adopt practices that genuinely acknowledge the human factors within our engineering culture. Through active engagement with individuals in the engineering ecosystem, we aspire to elevate collective self-awareness, enhance the quality of interactions, and improve developer experiences. By optimising the human side of our software delivery mechanisms, we aim to positively impact overall organisational performance.
Friday Forum Events
We have launched a series of fortnightly forums for engineering managers, leads, principals and CTOs to share their struggles and their insights in navigating the human aspects of engineering. Our first FREE online event is scheduled for 9th February between 12:00 and 13:00 GMT where we will be curating a conversation around ‘The Art and Science of Feedback’. We all know that timely, considerate, and actionable feedback is critical for the growth of engineering teams but there are so many nuances around creating a feedback culture. This will be a chance to share experiences and learn from your peers in the industry.
You may sign up for the event at: https://lu.ma/human-centric-engineering
Video Conversations
To accompany each theme for the Friday Forums we will share a pre-recorded conversation to help participants think about the topics before the event. These will be uploaded to our YouTube channel and will be shared in this newsletter in long-form format:
Here is a recording of our conversation on ‘The Art and Science of Feedback’:
We will follow up each Friday Forum with a Substack post in which we will flesh out the concept in more detail based on our explorations and conversations per topic.
The Potential of the Human-Centric Engineering Project
From our observations and conversations, we both see an unmet need for people in software organisations to be able to talk about and understand the difficult and awkward human factors involved in engineering. Many technical problems are rooted in the human psychological and sociological dynamics of how we organise, communicate and collaborate. It is becoming more widely acknowledged that the best way for software engineers and managers to grow is to become adept at so-called ‘soft skills’ which in reality are extremely ‘hard’ to master. Only in cultures where it is OK to talk about our human-to-human struggles can we collectively see and enhance the quality of our interdependencies.
Over time we see the potential of this project evolving into a suite of learning tools and resources to aid the personal growth of engineers and the efficiency of teams. We see the project developing as our conversations develop.