Bennett Garner

There’s a common problem I often encounter. It’s prevalent among more junior developers, but it can also affect developers with many years of experience. Put simply: they want to be told how to solve the problem, rather than figuring it out themselves. The desire to be told what to do can take many forms. Lots of questions, long threads on Slack, or multiple requests to pair. It’s scary & vulnerable to put yourself out there.

I love airplanes & all things aviation. Recently, I was reading about the top causes of accidents for general aviation pilots. One of the main factors in accidents is the pilot’s task saturation. Task saturation refers to having too many things to do at once. You get overwhelmed & make poor judgments. As software developers, we’re not flying airplanes thousands of feet above the ground.