Engineering Culture by InfoQ

Finding Your Engineering Bottleneck: The Hierarchy of Engineering Needs

Aug 22, 2025
Explore the fascinating 'Hierarchy of Engineering Needs' and how it mirrors Maslow's framework, guiding engineering leaders in prioritizing impact over complexity. Dive into systems thinking to better understand team dynamics and enhance software delivery processes. Discover how addressing foundational requirements can unlock improvement potential and transform team maturity. This conversation challenges established concepts, urging leaders to reevaluate their approaches for a more effective engineering culture.
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INSIGHT

Hierarchy Reveals Dependency Of Engineering Practices

  • The Hierarchy of Engineering Needs maps dependencies so teams stop reaching for immature practices.
  • Maslow-like layers reveal that missing fundamental capabilities block higher-level improvements.
ANECDOTE

Teams That Can Calmly Own Production

  • Henaghan describes teams that calmly run daily production deployments and own disaster recovery.
  • Those teams can onboard juniors and help others because they have stable fundamentals in place.
INSIGHT

Flow Is The Ultimate Engineering Goal

  • Flow is the desired outcome: efficient delivery of customer-valued work while maintaining trust.
  • Moments of flow are fragile unless lower-level needs are adequately met.
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