Dunning Kruger effect in Software development life cycle.(SDLC)
If you remember the first time you have printed “Hello world” into console and feel invincible, and you put that skill inside your Linkedin/CV immediately. After 1 month on same page, realize that, much deep you get, much complex it become. That is specifically call dunning kruger effect and its result.
In that point most of the people either leave the path or put hard work into it. In software development world, project time estimation is widely misconduct due to DK(Dunning Kruger). Some people have a concept that only young beginner have this effect or the most senior. But all level of software developer have this effect in some point of their knowledge growth.
What is DK:
The Dunning-Kruger effect is a type of cognitive bias in which people believe that they are smarter and more capable than they really are. Essentially, low ability people do not possess the skills needed to recognize their own incompetence. The combination of poor self-awareness and low cognitive ability leads them to overestimate their own capabilities.
In simple way, “The more you know, the less confidence you will get”
Usually this curve more pointed toward young professionals, but it is not true and not giving the complete overview of this effect. I am trying to architect an azure solution, in the beginning of this task, with my several years web development skills I thought it would be easy, after deploy one sql server with a test database I started feeling that it is easy to do. But the effect got me down when I have realized that architect an azure solution need a vast amount of knowledge in different level of technology stacks.
Actually whenever a specific task required a new knowledge/skill this effect occurred. So young developer have this effect more often than seniors.
How it is affected SDLC
Software development is a rapid changing task, In each year there is several update on various technologies and frameworks and libraries are keep changing. Experience and productivity have a strong correlation, one can be experience in many language also solving different used case problems can be count on the bucket of experience. In that point, certain developer have experienced in specific language, framework can be noob on another framework/technologies.
Learning curve time differentiate one personal capability, some people has small learning curve time and some people have large learning curve.
In SDLC, implementation part impacted by this curve so often. You can not expect ideal productivity from a person who is in learning curve.
Often company hire people based on current project requirement and faster hiring process for developer, did not put effort on understand that person capability and learning time, problem solving and interest.
It is also important to let all member know, what is the expectation from individual and how can it be improve.
Who is responsible
Actually from my opinion a project manager should have enough estimation and idea about the project and deliverable also understand the capacity of team from their points.
Usually senior developer or scrum master in agile divide task between teams. Actually in simple word this responsibility goes to all members inside project. After a failed project, I have decided keep an skills profile for all developer inside team and their near future task/learning list. It helps to choose right person for a taskforce and get skill overview regarding all developers/employees skills.
I prefer skill update on existing employee at first if not possible in due time/budget then get a new employee.
Remember the quote from Richard Branson :
“ Train people well enough so they can leave, treat them well enough, so they don’t want to.”
Do you have it
In psychology, the four stages of competence, or the “conscious competence” learning model, relates to the psychological states involved in the process of progressing from incompetence to competence in a skill.
The four stages are:
- Unconscious incompetence: The individual does not understand or know how to do something and does not necessarily recognize the deficit. They may deny the usefulness of the skill. The individual must recognize their own incompetence, and the value of the new skill, before moving on to the next stage. The length of time an individual spends in this stage depends on the strength of the stimulus to learn.
- Conscious incompetence: Though the individual does not understand or know how to do something, they recognize the deficit, as well as the value of a new skill in addressing the deficit. The making of mistakes can be integral to the learning process at this stage.
- Conscious competence: The individual understands or knows how to do something. However, demonstrating the skill or knowledge requires concentration. It may be broken down into steps, and there is heavy conscious involvement in executing the new skill.
- Unconscious competence: The individual has had so much practice with a skill that it has become “second nature” and can be performed easily. As a result, the skill can be performed while executing another task. The individual may be able to teach it to others, depending upon how and when it was learned.
If anyone have suffer from this effect should have or possess following characteristic depends on industry and subject it may vary:
- Tend to overestimate their own level of skill
- Fail to recognize genuine skill in others
- Fail to recognize the extremity of their inadequacy
- Recognize and acknowledge their own previous lack of skill, if they can be trained to substantially improve
How to minimize the negative impact
1. Use many measurable standards for evaluating performance. No one can escape concrete performance goals.
2. Encourage debate and dissension. Care should be taken to handle it properly or else it would build a culture of risk aversion and negativity. Our goal should be to identify and understand risk, not to avoid it.
3. Encourage your best employees, even if they don’t have a lot of confidence in themselves.
4. Avoid making decisions by yourself. Having trusted advisers lends more perspective to the decision we make.
