Exploiting Fast and Slow Thinking

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As thinking human beings and agile team members we can benefit from knowing more about how we think, deliberate and decide. Agile teams rely on trust, transparency, collaboration, and collective decision-making. “Thinking, Fast and Slow,” by Daniel Kahneman explains two systems that drive how we think. System 1 thinking is fast, intuitive, and emotional; System 2 is slow, deliberate, and logical.

In this session you will learn how fast and slow thinking affects your reactions, behaviors, and decision-making. You’ll explore how several agile practices amplify and exploit your thinking abilities and where they might lead you astray. For example, the Given-When-Then BDD scenarios are concrete and specific. They prevent us from leaping to conclusions about expected results. Those same BDD specs can also lead you to believe that that’s all there is. The Pomodoro Technique helps block work into manageable chunks, making time for uninterrupted slow thinking. But what else might you do?

Fast thinking works pretty well in a well-known context. You save time when you don’t have to deliberate over details and nuances in order to make informed decisions. But fast thinking can lead to extremely poor decisions. You might jump to conclusions, be wildly optimistic, or greatly under-assess risks and rewards. You need to exploit both fast and slow thinking on agile projects. And you need to be acutely aware of when fast thinking is tripping you up.

During this session you will explore some impacts of fast and slow thinking and share with others where you might need to slow down or speed up. You will practice reframing your questions and concerns about specific situations in terms of fast and slow thinking. And you’ll identify some specific situations where your thinking needs to shift and explore how you might make those shifts.