On (Modern?) Software Development

Talks

On this page you can find the descriptions related to the talks I created over the years.

“Thoughts on (Modern?) Software Development – Observations From a 20-Year Journey”

“If someone is taking a journey, he (or she) can tell a story. Therefore I would take my staff and hat and would choose to travel.” (Matthias Claudius, 1740-1815)

Upcoming talks
Customer voices
  • „An honest, reflected and at the same time entertaining talk about the challenges of modern software development. Alexander manages to highlight known problem from the field by shedding new and different light on those – smart (in the best sense), close to the practitioner and with a wink of an eye. Very recommendable!”
    • Sare Öztürk, Softwareingenieurin, 05.06.2025
  • “Alexander thank you for your very inspiring talk and the ensuing discussions. It was a real pleasure to get to know you and I am sure that your work will be providing many organizations with real benefits in the future.”
    • Sabine Hipp, Principal UX Designer, Opportunity Lead, 04.06.2025
  • „Alexander Thurow is an outstanding speaker with profound IT knowledge, which he very eloquently offers to his audiences by covering a wide range of topics. His talks offer a multitude of headstarters and are inviting the listener to deepen his or her own knowledge. Very much recommended!“
    • Kenneth Keck, Software Engineer | IT Freelancer, 15.05.2025
  • „Thank you, Alex, for these inspiring impulses – I am blown away!“
    • Jutta Jürgen, Agile Coach, 19.03.2025
  • „Alexander’s talk at our Software Architecture Meetup in Nürnberg was refreshingly different: different content, different style, and a different perspective. Drawing from his experience and numerous notable citations by renowned authors in and around the field of software development, Alex’s talk ‘Thoughts On (Modern?) Software Development‘ distilled the essence of software development: a people’s business where the success of projects is deeply rooted in the quality of human communication and interaction. Recognizing the challenges most developers often face in this area, Alex highlighted these issues and provided insights aimed at enhancing team dynamics and achieving successful software development outcomes. If you want to know what might be blocking your software development teams from being productive, listen to Alex’s talk.“
    • Markus Harrer, Software Evolutionist, 31.03.2025
  • „’Thoughts On (Modern?) Software Development‘ is a talk worth hearing. It reminds listeners of the words regularly spoken by senior software professionals: software development is not only about ‚writing the code‘ in your lonely cubicle – instead it is a complex and collaborative team endeavor. Especially in our times of rising numbers of software developers in our industry, coinciding with the simultaneous steep increase in demand for software knowhow, we need more colleagues like Alexander. He employs his twenty+ years of experience in order to pass on urgently needed background knowledge to colleagues.“
    • Kai Reeh, Domain Lead Development, 20.02.2025
  • „Alex’s talks are controversial, inspiring and always thought-provoking. So watch out, throw in some glucose to prevent your head from exploding. :-)”
    • Dr. Johannes Mainusch, Owner and Manager @kommitment, 27.02.2025
  • „This year I was really sad, that I cannot participate in the CCC congress. At least until I heared Alex‘s talk in Karlsruhe – because it was a good compensation for the fact, that I will not be heading for Hamburg.“
    • Mahdi Mirashrafi, Software Developer, 04.12.2024
  • „I got to know Alexander when he was starting out his career as a software developer. Twenty years later I met him again when he presented the takeaways from his time as the software development professional he became in the meantime. Personally, I perceived the talk as very inspiring and I am sure that the talk provides every software developer, manager or superior with new impulses for reflection and discussion.“
    • Tobias Frech, IT Expert for Jakarta EE, JBoss/WildFly and Java Operations, 26.02.2025
  • „Software development would be so much easier, if you would not need to get so annoyed by regularly interacting with colleagues or business stakeholders. But unfortunately not much productive output would be produced without those interactions. The exchange with colleagues and customers is indeed the basis for successful software. Universities can only go so far as to teach software-related basics, not how you become a good software developer. And exactly at that inflection point Alexander takes us with him onto his journey through the profession of software development. He reports vividly how he needed to learn to master complexity and what it takes to interact with human beings. Among the many general reading and book hints that Alexander passes on to us are many classics like Fred Brooks’’ „The Mythical Man-Month“ (‚Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later.‘), but also many sources which I did not know. I believe that if I wanted to read all the mentioned sources, I would need to take off for quite some time. Overall it was a dense evening closing with a lively discussion. Especially the topic of „AI” led to some tempers boiling up. Finally agreement was reached about the urgency of producing Clean Code, because software development is indeed a craft you need to learn and improve continuously.“
    • Oliver Boehm, Java architect, 21.02.2025
Sources 
... see here.
Past talks & recordings

The present talk was designed with exactly this, 1000-times heard (and slightly updated), German proverb in the back of the head. Initially created for a student audience („From education to employment: A requirements-set for modern software developers“), it tries to outline what the presenter identified as relevant for a productive survival in the software development business (aka „the wild“). Category: „Possibly not so new – but subjectively noteworthy“.

So, did you ever wonder why we, as a whole community of experts, so often struggle to tame the beast called software development? The “Thoughts on (Modern?) Software Development” talk tries to present some answers to the question why our ongoing fight is a tough one.

Spoiler: Most of the time it is not about what you think it is…

Topics covered:

  • What are the characteristics of software development?
  • What is experience and how do you gain it?
  • A learning model – The Dreyfus-Model
  • Cognitive biases
  • Factors of influence when you are developing software
  • „Precision, guess work, unreliable data and questionable knowledge”
  • Observations about people who code
  • Hype Driven Development
  • Artificial intelligence
  • Micro challenges
  • Macro challenges

“Solutions for (Modern?) Software Development – Approximations From a 20-Year Journey”

„For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.“ (H. L. Mencken, 1880-1956)

Customer voices
  • “I had the pleasure of working with Alexander Thurow, and I can recommend him unreservedly. If it comes to software development, real success often cannot be found in the resolution of technical challenges, but in the capability to identify and address „soft factors“ like unclear requirements, insufficient communication or wrong team composition. Alex repeatedly shows that he is able to address and resolve these, often invisible, but critical topics. With his broad and long-standing experience he identifies these hidden „bugs“ in the software development process – e.g. the so called technical debt that accrues over time and leads to a „grown and crowded system“. He clearly addresses those topics and brings them to the light of day, before they become major problems for the development organization. One of his especially impressive capabilities is his ability to take team dynamics into account (e.g. the assessment of a teams’ own capabilities) and to thereby improve the quality of its software development system. For me his work is a valuable eye-opener that should also inspire managers to pay more attention to the not immediately visible, but crucial aspects of their respective software projects. I can highly recommend Alex as an expert and valuable consultant for every software project that will be coming your way.”
    • Ralf Koch, IT executive (also on a journey that has been going on for a while 😄), 16.03.2025
Sources 
... see here.

The talk tries to find an approximate answer to the following question which more and more clearly surfaced while I progressed through my 20 years of professional software development:

“How can we nudge the complex system of ‘software development’ into directions, which do not (repeatedly) lead us into dead ends?”

The following four topics are covered:

  1. Effectively managing complexity
  2. Effectively managing cognitive load
  3. Effectively performing human interactions
  4. Learning how we as humans tick

Topics covered:

  • The Status Quo – „The Cloud”
  • The Real Challenge – “The Cloud”
  • Management of complexity – (d)MiB
  • Management of complexity – Check your metaphors
  • Management of cognitive load – Attention
  • Management of cognitive load – Distractions
  • Management of cognitive load – Inconsistencies
  • Human interactions – The Project Management Triangle
  • Human interactions – The Software Management Triangle
  • Human interactions – This thing called trust…
  • Human interactions – What matters most in IT?
  • Human interactions – The learning organization
  • How we humans tick – The way we operate…
  • How we humans tick – The Dreyfus-Model
  • How we humans tick – Cognitive biases
  • How we humans tick – Sustainable pace
  • Ok now, Alex: What is the goal?