Optimizing for learning

Agile development has taught us about the importance of things like transparency and feedback, but have you ever thought about why those things matter so much?

I think this has to do with enhancing learning - by creating common understanding and faster learning cycles. When you realize that it is really about learning you discover that there is much to learn from other disciplines, like learning models in education, from cognitive sciences, from research methodology and probably a lot more.

I think building software products is a lot more about learning than we imagine. There are of course a lot of learning about technical implementation, but that is a small fraction of what you need to figure out to do software development, like what you customer and users really need, how to organize the work, the team etc.

Today I start improving my work by actively applying learning ideas I pick up from education and science. In time I hope to try to optimize for learning in a software development setting and see how that goes. At least I will learn something!