Jimmy's initial thoughts after The Future of Software Development Retreat Europe

I’m back home again, extremely inspired, energized and optimistic by “The future of software development retreat” hosted by Thoughtworks. I haven’t digested all of it yet, but I wanted to share some quick thoughts anyway, and get back with more thorough texts later.

The image shows a “25” because it’s been 25 years since the Agile Manifesto came to life. That said, I’m not sure I heard the word “agile” once! During the workshop, everyone’s focus was on the future. And agile was probably internalised a long time ago for most participants.

Instead of the common polarisation between agentic coding as the evilest of all vs the solution to everything, all discussions were nuanced and balanced. The focus was rather on when, where and how. With the risk of my having a liiittle confirmation bias at play, a shared opinion seemed to be that the concepts I always come back to (such as DDD, XP, TOC, TDD, BDD, CD…) are and will be more important than ever. At the same time, we seemed to agree that there are many enormous challenges on several levels, But, as I often say, solutions start with understanding!

Another reason for my optimism about the future is probably that several participants seemed to see the need for “Extreme Humanism”, or “conspicuously human”, as one person clarified it (Chatham house rules applied).

More optimism: I anticipate that several participants will publish very interesting and important articles in the coming weeks. You can’t force me to reveal anything more about that, though.

I could go on and on, but I will stop for now. As is most often the case, the individuals and interactions were the thing. Truly amazing!

Thank you so much to Thoughtworks for running this, and for the invitation!