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Dr. Cat Hicks
Get the guidebook to being human in tech
"The Psychology of Software Teams is essential reading for anyone engaged in building, supporting, or growing software teams."
\- Eli Israel, Managing Partner, Gartner Consulting
"Dr. Cat Hicks is a category of one." "The whole thing is stellar. Five stars. This book could be the "Accelerate" of the agentic era. It's one thing to have opinions, and entirely a different thing to have opinions \\*backed by research.\\* Anyone who cares about software should read it." \- Charity Majors, Cofounder & CTO at honeycomb.io
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"If you lead engineers and believe culture is ‘soft,’ this book will disabuse you of that notion quickly. Psychological safety, learning, and collaboration aren’t perks, they are infrastructure. Ignore them and your systems will fail, slowly or catastrophically.” - Scott Hanselman, VP of Developer Community, Microsoft
Early reader reactions!
It is quite possibly the best software development book about teams that I have ever read. Each paragraph has some insightful nugget and relates so well to the real world. Highly recommend! \- Carol Willing, Python Core Developer, 3-term steering council member
One of my most gifted \[former\] co-workers at Google has written an incredibly insightful book on the psychology of software. Very nerdy, very wonderful. It's worth a read if you care about scientifically based ways to best manage software teams" - Mary Kate Stimmler, Fellow at the Stanford Center for Advanced Studies in Behavioral Sciences (CASBS)
Like everyone else with a lick of sense in this dumbass software business, I have pre-ordered \[Cat's\] 's book. \- @oisin@mastodon.ie
My favorite chapter is Chapter 3, where you bring the receipts that nuke the "10x developer" and "l33tcode" myths from orbit, leaving them both a smoking crater in the ground. 👏 \- Eli Israel
If you work in tech or if you work with people who work in tech, preorder this book. Just do it. I have no doubt that you will better for it, and I’m pretty sure the world will be better for it. \- Bryan Guffey
Cat Hicks knows more about the human dynamics of software teams than anyone else I have ever known. Can't wait to read her new book. If you work with developers, this is the user manual you've been looking for. \- Adam Zimman, author of Progressive Delivery
Cat Hicks, PhD
Psychologist for the Humans of Tech
Hi. I'm a psychological scientist studying software teams and technology work, an author, an international keynote speaker, and an empirical interventionist. I put answers behind questions everyone is asking but few people are gathering real evidence about. I'm the founder of Catharsis, a new evidence vision for technical work: an evidence science consultancy with an open science arm that drives our work and empowers technical people with community-serving strategies to understand & protect interesting, impactful work. I'm the author of The Psychology of Software Teams. I write at Fight for the Human and co-host at Change, Technically, a research-backed podcast about a more diverse and inclusive future for tech and STEM.
Talks
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47:06
Not Just Brains in Jars: The Human Psychology of Developers
Ned and Kyler are joined by Dr. Cat Hicks to discuss her new book "The Psychology of Software Teams." They talk about software development from a psychological perspective, including how negative stereotypes of developers can lead to them being treated simply as “brains in jars” in toxic environments. They also point out the pitfalls of relying too heavily on one person, which can lead to burnout, and how “bands are more important than rock stars”. Links: The Psychology of Software Teams - Routledge - https://www.routledge.com/The-Psychology-of-Software-Teams/Hicks/p/book/9781032963389 The Psychology of Software Teams - Amazon - https://www.amazon.com/Psychology-Software-Teams-Cat-Hicks/dp/1032963387/ Fight for the Human Newsletter - https://www.fightforthehuman.com/ Dr. Cat Hicks on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/drcathicks/ Day Two DevOps is part of the Packet Pushers network. Visit our website to find more great networking and technology podcasts, along with tutorial videos, the Human Infrastructure newsletter, and loads more resources for building your IT career. https://packetpushers.net
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01:02:43
The Psychology of Technologists (Cat Hicks, Catharsis Consulting) | posit::conf(2025)
The Psychology of Technologists 💬 Speaker(s): Cat Hicks 📝 Abstract: Technology teams are struggling to be heard. Technologists are grappling with high turnover, high burnout, and low resilience in the face of rapidly-accelerating technological change. Even though effective technical teams are an essential part of our world continuing to work, many organizations struggle to understand their technical teams, stuck in old stereotypes that treat technical people like isolated machines. To build a thriving future, we need a new way of working together and understanding our own minds as we build technology. In my empirical research across thousands of developers, technical managers and their teams, we've explored what a psychologically-rich environment looks like for modern technologists and found important signals that can guide teams toward greater resilience, innovation, and thriving. In this keynote we'll unlock access to the psychological sciences and evidence that you can use to make your every day more human. 🔗 Links: Dr. Cat Hicks - https://www.drcathicks.com/ Catharsis Consulting - https://www.catharsisinsight.com/ Center for Open Science (COS) - https://www.cos.io/ Fight for the Human Newsletter - https://www.fightforthehuman.com/ posit::conf(2025) Subscribe to posit::conf updates: https://posit.co/about/subscription-management/
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24:26
Psychology, Technological Innovation, and Why We Need Science (with Dr. Cat Hicks)
Dr. Cat Hicks, a psychologist studying software teams, joins RedMonk’s Kelly Fitzpatrick to discuss the role of psychology in technological innovation. Dr. Hicks emphasizes the importance of understanding the human aspects of software development and shares insights from her recent research projects, including a study on code review anxiety and the impact of what she calls “AI Skill Threat” on developers. Dr. Hicks also addresses the challenges faced by scientists today, the significance of cumulative cultures in software, and her upcoming book on the psychology of software teams. Show notes: https://redmonk.com/blog/2025/03/03/psychology-technical-innovation-and-why-we-need-science-with-dr-cat-hicks/
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25:50
Where we’re going wrong with developer productivity | Catherine Hicks at leadDev London 2023
Are you writing enough code, keeping up with the latest technology, or driving product progress? Developer productivity is a top priority for developers, engineering leaders, and businesses. But attempts to measure developer productivity can be risky, damaging, and downright misleading. From the infamous lines of code to brutal code reviews, every developer has a horror story of a time their authentic effort and problem-solving was mismeasured, or worse, even punished. In this talk, I want to propose a different, science-backed approach to productivity using research evidence from a study with 1200+ developers: developer thriving. I’ll tackle why “thriving” remains a challenge, exploring three myths about productivity that I believe hold our industry back, and thinking through better and more scientific ways of understanding productivity for engineering organizations, leaders, and developers.
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44:53
Measuring Cycle Time with Dr. Cat Hicks
Cat is a research architect and psychologist for software teams. She leads high-velocity research agendas that provide new empirical evidence to answer pressing questions about tech innovation and developer thriving. She's the Principal at Catharsis Consulting and the author of a forthcoming book on the Psychology of Software Teams. Takeaways • Cycle time is a complex topic that requires careful definition. • Cycle time measures can provide insights into software development processes. • Organizations need to measure cycle time over a long period to understand trends. • Cycle time is highly variable and can be influenced by seasonality • It's important to consider the context in which cycle time is measured. • Developers often feel their work is invisible to management. • Cycle time can be used to improve communication with customers. • Organizations should create their own benchmarks for cycle time. • A thoughtful approach to metrics can empower teams and improve performance. Chapters 00:00 Introduction to Cycle Time and Research Background 06:03 Defining Cycle Time and Its Variations 10:32 Understanding the Audience for Cycle Time Metrics 15:03 The Importance of Measurement in Software Engineering 19:11 Insights from Cycle Time Research and Practical Applications 21:27 Understanding Cycle Time Measurement 27:07 Data Collection and Statistical Modeling 33:26 Benchmarking and Organizational Context 41:16 Creating a Cycle Time Playbook
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01:29:53
The Innovation of Cumulative Cultures and Developer Problem-Solving-Dr Cat Hicks
Did you know that crows are better than toddlers at generating novel solutions? It's true! In the earliest days of childhood, around the globe scientists have documented that human cognition struggles to generate novel solutions. But we are adept at imitation, transmitting and teaching the solutions that we see others put into practice. What does this have to do with software, and innovation, and the cultures we want to create for the communities we love? I'm a psychologist fascinated by cycles of innovation in developer communities, and I think a simple reframe lights the way forward for our industry: in this talk, rather than focusing on what drives individual developer productivity, together we’re going to focus on the science of what drives developers’ collaborative problem-solving. We'll dive into the cognitive architecture of problem-solving, as well as what I've learned from leading empirical research with thousands of developers. Links to papers and resources https://www.drcathicks.com/post/cat-virtualddd-a-barn-burner-of-a-talk-references-resources
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57:51
Helping developers thrive | Cat Hicks | Data Science Hangout
To join future data science hangouts, add it to your calendar here: https://pos.it/dsh - All are welcome! We'd love to see you! We were recently joined by Dr. Cat Hicks, Psychologist for software teams at Catharsis Consulting and upcoming positconf 2025 keynote speaker, to chat about the psychology of software teams, organizational culture and team dynamics, debunking tech industry myths, and strategies for professional visibility. Cat's work is in applied social science, bringing evidence-based answers to real-world workplace questions, especially for software development teams. She's not a "couch psychologist" but rather focuses on "structures of beliefs and behavioral science and team practices". Here are some of the themes Cat touches on in the conversation: - Understanding developer (and Data Scientist!) thriving - Debunking industry myths, especially the "10x Developer" myth - "Designing an organization that wants to understand itself" - Fostering psychological safety in remote, multi-disciplinary teams - Getting recognized for work by being strategically performative Cat has a unique perspective that bridges psychology and the practical realities of tech and data roles. She's got our backs! Resources mentioned in the video and zoom chat: 🔗 Cat Hicks's newsletter, "Fight for the Human" → https://www.fightforthehuman.com/ 🔗 Cat Hicks's podcast, "Change, Technically" (specifically the episode "You Deserve Better Brain Research") → https://www.changetechnically.fyi/2396236/episodes/17378968-you-deserve-better-brain-research 🔗 Cat Hicks's Bluesky profile → https://bsky.app/profile/grimalkina.bsky.social 🔗 Developer Thriving paper (AI skill threat paper) → https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/2gej5\_v2 🔗 Code Review Anxiety paper: "Understanding and effectively mitigating code review anxiety" → https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10664-024-10550-9 🔗 Code Review Anxiety workbook → https://developer-success-lab.gitbook.io/code-review-anxiety-workbook-1 🔗 Ted Laderas's post on how improvisational comedy rules can help collaborations → https://laderast.github.io/posts/2022-02-27-yes-and-is-the-foundation-of-collaboration/ 🔗 Posit Conference information → https://posit.co/conference/ 🔗 useR 2025 conference information → https://user2025.r-project.org ► Subscribe to Our Channel Here: https://bit.ly/2TzgcOu Follow Us Here: Website: https://www.posit.co Hangout: https://pos.it/dsh LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/posit-software Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/posit.co Thanks for hanging out with us! 💛 Timestamps: 00:00 Intro 01:11 Cat Hicks Introduces herself 04:04 What does Catharsis Consulting help with? 07:45 Preview of Cat Hicks's Posit conference keynote 10:14 Tips on how to objectively assess team comfort with change 19:14 How much of developer thriving comes from your immediate team vs. the larger organization? 23:56 Strategies to foster psychological safety and empathy in remote, multi-disciplinary teams 29:04 Have you had instances where you felt the need to correct misconceptions about a paper? (the myth of "10x developers" or "10x engineers") 34:34 Have you looked at interventions that explicitly scaffold information exchange in groups? 40:48 Ways organizations can balance top-down and bottom-up approaches to culture 47:19 What can staff with less formal power do to sow positive seeds in a low-morale culture? 52:00 How to get noticed for long-term, high-impact work without appearing unproductive or overly performative
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49:55
Driving incremental, meaningful, measurable change to developer experience
Liz Fong-Jones, Lizzie Matusov and Catherine Hicks PhD discuss how change theory can be used to drive cyclical interventions that build healthier cultures in software teams. Learn both theory and frameworks for iterative changes as well as strategies for measuring impact and making refinements. Thank you to our PlatformCon panelists: - Lizzie Matusov, co-founder and CEO of Quotient http://www.getquotient.com/ - Cat Hicks, founder and chief scientist at Catharsis Consulting https://www.drcathicks.com/ - Liz Fong-Jones, field CTO of Honeycomb.io http://lizthegrey.com/ - Jennifer Riggins, panel moderator and freelance technology journalist https://linkedin.com/in/jkriggins Click Subscribe to the Platform Engineering channel and view the whole five-day platform engineering event: https://www.youtube.com/@PlatformEngineering/playlists Learn more about PlatformCon 2025 at: https://platformcon.com/
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28:57
Building for the new developer | Cat Hicks | LeadDev London 2024
So we’ve bought a Copilot license for our teams….AI in software solved, right?! Well, in the Developer Success Lab – an empirical research lab studying the social science of developers and their wellbeing — we went on a journey in 2023 to understand something a little different about AI and software work: how developers are being impacted by changing expectations happening across the world of software development, and what leaders can do to help them. In this talk, I want to share the research story of our large-scale study into the social science of genAI adoption as we fought to bring a human-centered approach to pressing questions that engineering organizations are facing about the rapidly-changing possibilities of AI-assisted coding.
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