NeuroAgile – the intersection of neuroscience, cognitive science, psychology and agile/lean software development. For some time now I’ve had an interest in understanding how and why Agile works (see: Does Scrum Work? Hell, yes!!! Why and Why Scrum Works??) while poorly written it was my first attempt at articulating a deeper why.
For some time now I’ve been reading about Neuroscience (Norman Doidge “The Brain That Changes Itself”, John Medina “Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving”, James Zull “The Art of Changing the Brain.”, Torkel Klingberg “The Overflowing Brain: Information Overload and the Limits of Working Memory” and David Rock “Your Brain at Work”), cognitive science and psychology (mostly via well researched blogs). What I’m learning that these fields have a lot to tell us about people, their motivations and how they work together. I think that these things are at the heart of making successful projects.
So why am I coming up with a new term? I think we need a label to help us categorize some of these great ideas and to provoke us into finding more. In my case I’m pushing it further. In the past few years between Roger and myself we’ve written several articles that look at applications of neuroscience: The Science of Learning: Best Approaches for Your Brain and Multitasking Gets You There Later. Now we’re crawling our way towards at least a mini-book. In the next few weeks I will start publishing a series of interesting links and sometime early in the fall we will publish a paper on Creativity.
Ooooooo. Looking forward to this Mark! Keep us updated!
Congratulations on stepping out and making these things more visible to e.g. the software community.
I share your view that a better understanding and appreciation of neuroscience and psychology (of the individual) can greatly benefit many aspects of software development (and wider business, too). I also encourage folks to look at the psychology of groups and organisations as a complementary subject area.
– Bob @FlowChainSensei