On May 15, 2004, I attended a talk by Dave Thomas entitled Herding Racehorses and Racing Sheep. At this point, I had been a software developer for eight years. When I entered the talk, I thought that the keys to software engineering are knowledge and processes (cognitive and formal social structures); when I exited the talk, I knew that the most important aspect of software engineering is people. Dave talked about the Dreyfus Model of Skill Acquisition for most of the talk. I don't remember exactly what Dave said, but, whatever it was, the change it wrought in me has set my trajectory ever since.
As a result, I changed the emphasis of my activities as a software engineer. While I continued to fulfill my technical responsibilities, I focused primarily on my colleagues, rather than the software we were building. I started multiple peer-to-peer study groups, mentored, trained, and even fought for organizational reform.
By 2006, I realized that my efforts were less effective than they could be. I attributed this to my practice being inadequately informed by theory. I returned to school in order to gain the theoretical background necessary to be an effective change agent as a software engineer.
I soon came to a further realization: not only did I personally not possess an adequate theoretical background for my project, I was unable to find an adequate established literature. This insight catapulted me into the GT HCC PhD program. I am starting a second career which should culminate in a professorship. I desire to do research that assists future software engineers (and perhaps others) to better understand their cognitive-social-historical-material position.
