Distributed. Agile Otter on why most devs work in the worst ways possible
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Jun 5, 2025 Tim Ottinger, a Senior Consultant at Industrial Logic and the Agile Otter, dives into rethinking software development practices. He discusses the pitfalls of solo work and the myths of efficiency in traditional teams. Tim highlights the power of swarm boards for enhanced remote collaboration and emphasizes boosting first-time through rates as a key productivity metric. The conversation also touches on the limitations of AI in coding. Tim advocates for small collaborative experiments to improve workflows and encourages raising team abilities instead of lowering pipeline standards.
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Programmers Know Very Little
- Most programmers only know a small fraction of their language, libraries, and codebase.
- Solo work with full utilization expectations leads to inefficiency and blame on individuals rather than the system.
Use Swarm Boards for Flow
- Work in groups including UX, developers, and QA to eliminate queues and handoffs.
- Use swarm boards where people choose tasks and collaborate to raise quality and first-time-through rates.
Start Team Experimenting Now
- Start by proposing an experiment to your manager to complete tasks as quickly as possible with team collaboration.
- Let people choose tasks and combine skills to increase success and share knowledge.
