Software Design Principles do not always translate to leadership

Software engineers learn and follow a number of design principles when building solutions. These principles outline good practices that one should follow in order to build the best applications. These become ingrained in our brains as engineers, lessons like do not repeat yourself. In 2019, I delivered a talk at Cincy Deliver considering if and how these principles translate to leadership. Can the principles that we as engineers spent countless hours learning translate to a leadership role?

One such design principle is information hiding. Good software design states that well designed code doesn’t include information that is not needed and hides information from others who don’t need access to it. This design principle reinforces other design principles such as Separation of Concerns and Single Responsibility Principle. By hiding information away, we ensure software is crafted with clear lines of duty.

But, when we take this principle and apply it to leadership, what does that look like? It might come across as a leader hoarding information, keeping his team in the dark, and feeding just the information the leader deems is necessary. Have you worked for or encountered a leader like this? Your experience in this situation may vary. You may thrive on having only relevant information delivered to you, freeing you to focus on the task at hand. Or, you may be like me who does their best work with the context of what is going on around me. The information may not be relevant now, but knowing it may lead to a connection later that proves valuable.

In my current role, I work with eight development teams. We’ve experimented with conducting a sprintly review that includes all teams, allowing them and the stakeholders to a window into all of the work occurring . This practice of information sharing frequently bared fruit, such as a time a developer suggested utilizing new functionality another team developed in a unique way with the feature his team was developing. If the information was hidden too tightly, he wouldn’t have known of this feature and how it could be used.

In an organization, not all information can be widely shared. Some things, such as HR moves, are sensitive. But hiding information paired with limiting team members to a single responsibility robs the organization of your teams mind and
their ability to make fascinating connections.