Why should I care about sociotechnical systems? @ Fast Flow meetup 2023

The craft of software design, architecture, and engineering is in constant change. Technology evolves, and our skills and practices evolve as well. How about the teams we are part of? And the organisations? The evolution at the team and organisation level is slower but more disruptive. Our brain likes routine, and it is hardwired that way. However, everything around us evolves.

How do all of those dimensions play together? How can we thrive in our craft? As software designers, architects or engineers, we should also be aware of the implications of technology changes in the teams and the organisation. We work in sociotechnical systems, and we create sociotechnical systems. It sounds like the movie Inception, doesn't it?

Join me in this talk, where I will share my insights on the skills needed to design sociotechnical systems and how we, as a community, can learn from each other.

Transcript

1. Why should I care about sociotechnical systems? João Rosa - Fast Flow meetup 9th of November 2023 Vandebron - Amsterdam
2. All of you, attendees, organisers and host! João Rosa | @joaoasrosa | 2 Photo by Caleb Chen on Unsplash
3. João Rosa | @joaoasrosa | 3 Photo by Federico Beccari on Unsplash
4. João Rosa | @joaoasrosa | 4 Do you know what a sociotechnical system is?
5. João Rosa | @joaoasrosa | 5 Can you explain what a sociotechnical system is?
6. João Rosa | @joaoasrosa | 6 Photo by Piret Ilver on Unsplash
7. João Rosa | @joaoasrosa | 7 One could definite it as… From Assessing the impact of new technology on complex sociotechnical systems, by Oosthuizen and Pretorius
8. João Rosa | @joaoasrosa | 8 In IT land… From Assessing the impact of new technology on complex sociotechnical systems, by Oosthuizen and Pretorius
9. João Rosa | @joaoasrosa | 9 What is missing in the picture?
10. João Rosa | @joaoasrosa | 10 What about the software produced by the team?
11. João Rosa | @joaoasrosa | 11 Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on Unsplash
12. João Rosa | @joaoasrosa | 12 It is ok to be confused, we will go on a journey together!
13. João Rosa | @joaoasrosa | 13 Photo by Mark König on Unsplash
14. João Rosa | @joaoasrosa | 14 🤓 🥸 🤩 🤪 🤔 List all the products in the product category Open a product and extract the current stock level Open the file with the 14-day forecast Search for the product 14-day forecast Calculate if the product will need restocking in the next 5 days If the product needs restocking, add the product to the supplier restocking list Iterate over the remaining products Send the restocking order for each supplier A team owns the value stream
15. João Rosa | @joaoasrosa | 15
16. João Rosa | @joaoasrosa | 16
17. João Rosa | @joaoasrosa | 17 What would you improve?
18. João Rosa | @joaoasrosa | 18 🤓 🥸 🤩 🤪 🤔 Review the products for resotcking Confirm the supplier restocking list
19. João Rosa | @joaoasrosa | 19
20. João Rosa | @joaoasrosa | 20 What do you see happening?
21. João Rosa | @joaoasrosa | 21 As a team, we optimised our environment… • Use and abuse on monitoring and logging • Adopted BDD and DDD as practices • Leverage property-based testing • Increased the resilience of our software • Leverage cloud native services João Rosa | @joaoasrosa | 21 Photo by Josh Calabrese on Unsplash
22. João Rosa | @joaoasrosa | 22 As a team, we optimised our environment… • Use and abuse on monitoring and logging • Adopted BDD and DDD as practices • Leverage property-based testing • Increased the resilience of our software • Leverage cloud native services João Rosa | @joaoasrosa | 22 Photo by Josh Calabrese on Unsplash Looking back, it had an effect on the sociotechnical system
23. João Rosa | @joaoasrosa | 23
24. João Rosa | @joaoasrosa | 24 Based on sociotechnical systems, what do you see?
25. João Rosa | @joaoasrosa | 25 A team creating software
26. João Rosa | @joaoasrosa | 26 A team creating software To be used by other teams to carry on their tasks!
27. João Rosa | @joaoasrosa | 27 A team creating software To be used by other teams to carry on their tasks! “A sociotechnical system creating another sociotechnical system” Jabe Bloom
28. João Rosa | @joaoasrosa | 28 Photo by Lina Trochez on Unsplash
29. Why should we care about sociotechnical systems? João Rosa | @joaoasrosa | 29 Photo by Mourad Saadi on Unsplash
30. Personal initiatives… João Rosa | @joaoasrosa | 30
31. And personal advertisement space… João Rosa | @joaoasrosa | 31 Book a call www.impactfulness.nl @joaorosa@mastodon.social in/joaoasrosa @joaoasrosa
32. João Rosa | @joaoasrosa | 32 Thank you for your energy and insights!