The Psychology of Software Teams

To build the future, we need new ways of supporting software teams. This book will give you a secret weapon: the psychology that creates resilience for developers, sustainable practices for software teams, and innovation for organizations. You’ll learn from rigorous empirical evidence gathered from top engineering organizations and thousands of developers around the world, revealing powerful principles software teams can use to guard against failure and drive cultures of collaboration and problem-solving.

Making incredible software doesn’t have to be a death march—this book presents a humane alternative for software teams looking to use the transformative power of behavioral science to understand what drives technology businesses forward. The Psychology of Software Teams provides a model for developers and leaders who want to bring the human back to tech and take a science-based approach to unlocking the “black box” of software engineering.

This book is for the developers and builders of the future. Bringing science and heart together, The Psychology of Software Teams will teach you how to untangle your thinking from pervasive myths about software work and harness the superpowers of psychology to create more joyful, innovative, and thriving environments for software.

1. The Brains and Hearts That Build the World 2. Breaking Up with Brains-in-Jars 3. More Bands and Fewer Rockstars 4. The Performance Paradox 5. Conflict or Coalitions? 6. Becoming an Organization That Wants to Understand Itself 7. Fighting Dirty for Good Culture

Cat Hicks is a psychological scientist who creates open science to drive change for people doing technical work. She holds a PhD in Quantitative Experimental Psychology from UC San Diego and is the founder and principal scientist of Catharsis, a scientific consultancy that helps organizations transform with human-centered evidence strategies. drcathicks.com

“In The Psychology of Software Teams , Cat Hicks has delivered an indispensable and long-overdue message that demystifies software team development. With touching compassion for software developers as people with individual needs and essential social connections, she brings research and insight to explode the tired debates about "developer productivity," and provide real answers and practical approaches for improvement.

The Psychology of Software Teams is essential reading for anyone engaged in building, supporting, or growing software teams.”

Eli Israel , Managing Partner, Gartner Consulting

“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

“This book presents an empathic, evidence-based analysis of developer productivity, and provides practical guidance based on the author's own research for avoiding or fixing common traps. The result is the most important new perspective on software development in years.”

“ The Psychology of Software Teams by Cat Hicks is a vital companion for any leader building a humane, high-performing organization. She skillfully dismantles the ‘Brains-in-Jars’ myth, proving that innovation is not a solitary act but the result of social learning. By introducing cognitive scaffolding and fostering thriving ecosystems, Hicks provides the missing link between organizational design and the individual human experience. This book aligns perfectly with the principles of fast flow of value; it is not just about speed, but about empowering people to excel without burnout. Essential reading for forward-thinking leaders ‘moving beyond the machine’.”

Matthew Skelton , Holistic Innovation matthewskelton.com . Co-author of Team Topologies and Internal Tech Conferences

“Dr. Cat Hicks is a category of one. If there are any other psychologists that have devoted their career to researching software practitioners, I am unaware of them. Likewise, while most of the concepts and arguments in the book are ones I have heard before, I have never heard them composed, broken down, and defended in such a precise and scientific manner.”

Charity Majors , cofounder & CTO at honeycomb.io

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