Socio-Technical Smells

Successful software development requires that you keep code and people in balance so that one supports the other. It's a hard challenge because maintaining a holistic view of a large codebase is virtually impossible. Adding to that, the people side of code is even more opaque: a piece of code doesn't reveal anything about its socio-technical context.

Fortunately, a new set of techniques known as behavioral code analysis are here to help. This approach combines code level metrics with easily accessible behavioral data on how teams interact within the code. Armed with these techniques, we explore how a lack of design qualities like coupling and cohesion cause organizational friction by focusing on a set of challenges found in most software organizations:

• Identify architectural coordination bottlenecks and understand the technical root causes.
• Visualize implicit dependencies between teams, act to decouple teams.
• Discover knowledge risks by measuring the Truck Factor. Learn how to mitigate it.
• Communicate the scaling risks inherent in Brooks's Law by showing data on how it impacts your delivery.
• Go beyond technical impact by knowing how bad code causes unhappiness, low morale, and increase attrition.

If you are a senior developer, software architect, or technical lead, this webinar will change how you view code. The techniques we discuss are available in existing tools, which you can put to use immediately. Join in to learn why technical decisions are never merely technical, and how you can stay a step ahead by remediating and preventing socio-technical smells.