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Dr. Cat Hicks

@grimalkina.bsky.social

12K followers 1.7K following 5K posts

Psychologist for Software Teams (& writing a book about it). Founder: Developer Success Lab, Catharsis Consulting. VP of Research. Defender of the mismeasured. she/her 🏳️‍🌈 https://www.drcathicks.com/ Host at: https://www.changetechnically.fyi/

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Dr. Cat Hicks @grimalkina.bsky.social · Jul 22

NEW Change, Technically just dropped where we go all in on Star Wars: Andor and the Psychology of Resistance ! 🤩

www.changetechnically.fyi/2396236/epis...

Andor and the psychology of resistance - Change, Technically

SHOW NOTES Dominic Packer’s Normative Conflict Model of Dissent is described in this paper as well as his other work: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1088868307309606 Cat also mentio...

www.changetechnically.fyi

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Dr. Cat Hicks @grimalkina.bsky.social · 6h

That's fair and why I considered it worth my time to write about it (as opposed to just completely ludicrous things). Any consideration of something in the realm of empirical claims can be an entry point to thinking about evidence literacy

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Dr. Cat Hicks @grimalkina.bsky.social · 6h

Way too many things working this way lately 😞😞😞

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Dr. Cat Hicks @grimalkina.bsky.social · 6h

When I got an internship at Google as a PhD student the only thing my advisor ever said about it? "Why on earth would they want someone like you"

Excruciating lack of vision to impact the real world and sabotage for those who try. There's a reason I don't speak to grad programs much anymore.

Dr. Cat Hicks @grimalkina.bsky.social · 6h

I also think a huge intellectual misstep is how little academic social scientists cared about doing work with populations like software developers. That disdain for applied work really biting them now imho.

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Dr. Cat Hicks @grimalkina.bsky.social · 7h

Totally your prerogative! Do you follow any social scientists at universities publishing on learning and problem solving? You might enjoy.

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Dr. Cat Hicks @grimalkina.bsky.social · 7h

I've raised money for better studies including funding an open science research lab for three years that created a lot of shared work on better understanding the experiences of developers. It's hard but certainly not impossible. Especially given the impact of how we develop software on our world.

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Dr. Cat Hicks @grimalkina.bsky.social · 7h

I disagree that it correctly identifies its caveats, I found the caveats yet claims pretty confusing to read and contradictory. I also think poor estimates can do as much damage as no estimate at all, frankly, but I agree I find the bro hype more noxious.

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Dr. Cat Hicks @grimalkina.bsky.social · 8h

Bakery themed software conference when??

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Dr. Cat Hicks @grimalkina.bsky.social · 8h

Really interesting what a hold this study has on AI critics then

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Dr. Cat Hicks @grimalkina.bsky.social · 8h

There's a lot of context here I need to learn about clearly. I was wondering about the funding model

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Dr. Cat Hicks @grimalkina.bsky.social · 8h

For me too!

Dr. Cat Hicks @grimalkina.bsky.social · 8h

Thank you for this cultural knowledge 🙏

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Dr. Cat Hicks @grimalkina.bsky.social · 8h

Wait really?? Link?

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Dr. Cat Hicks @grimalkina.bsky.social · 8h

Conversations about AI all last week and today on here have me thinking:

How would we see the possibilities of software work for people if we had goals of human expression rather than production?

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Dr. Cat Hicks @grimalkina.bsky.social · 8h

That's fair and I appreciate the dialogue, I also believe those claims should be scrutinized and that velocity IS an interesting thing to study!

Dr. Cat Hicks @grimalkina.bsky.social · 8h

Diffs in who has good learning strategies and who doesn't feels like it'll be a differentiator potentially

I don't buy that it's just "experience" as people say

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Dr. Cat Hicks @grimalkina.bsky.social · 8h

The level of dessert available in Germany is also incredible. I wish I had a month literally devoted to trying bakeries right now 😭

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Dr. Cat Hicks @grimalkina.bsky.social · 8h

So even when trying to think "what is the right level at the org to intervene on if our goal is ticket velocity," not necessarily at the individual differences level tbh

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Dr. Cat Hicks @grimalkina.bsky.social · 8h

I think this shifts if you imagine people who wouldn't be able to work in a category being able to, less about velocity much more about category change. Ticket velocity itself is not strongly tied to individual level work at org scale - we have a paper about to come out on this

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Dr. Cat Hicks @grimalkina.bsky.social · 8h

Just nodding. Omg when I think about it as an experimentalist my mind really explodes. What we even try to randomize in the first place is excessively complicated to figure out. Like I understand why the MITRE study ended up designed as it was even though I think the design is wrong for the q

Dr. Cat Hicks @grimalkina.bsky.social · 9h

People need to learn what selection bias is

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Dr. Cat Hicks @grimalkina.bsky.social · 9h

+ Convenience recruited probably! I mean I like anecdotes ☺️ but yeah

Dr. Cat Hicks @grimalkina.bsky.social · 9h

This is a bizarre way to speak to someone like @lizthegrey.com just sharing her real work experience. Experience always matters, and in fact observing experience is obviously a goal of research. A 16 person study is basically anecdotal and science is interpreted, it doesn't speak for itself.

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Dr. Cat Hicks @grimalkina.bsky.social · 10h

Also if the ultimate test of "are you a good dev" isn't how fast you work, why should the ultimate test of "is this a tool that helps people do good dev" be "it makes you faster"......?

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Dr. Cat Hicks @grimalkina.bsky.social · 10h

I cannot disagree with that. To me scientific progress is about being open to new models and also knowing they will always be imperfect and trying to iterate on them. As I wrote in my piece I think this group should be commended for being transparent on methods so we can have thoughts about them!

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