Humane assessment primer summary (August 17)

The first edition of the Humane Assessment Primer took place on August 17. There were 9 people in the audience: from junior to seasoned software engineers, and from researchers to consultants.

The course was split into two main parts. The first part consisted of a theoretical introduction that covered the main parts of the method:

• what assessment is and why it is economically important,
• how adopting crafting analysis in-house during development can solve the problem,
• how to tackle various assessment problems in the development process,
• how to embed the skills needed in the organization, and
• how to support tailored assessment via a new breed of tools.

Humane assessment introduces multiple concepts that have a wide reach within a software development company, and grasping them requires a more direct experience. Thus, the second and most exciting part consisted of several case studies that exhibited the facets of the method in real-life situations. This part was driven as a free discussion in which the participants got to ask questions and I answered them through examples. The discussion got quite intense with many ideas bouncing back and forth, and that was great.

Finally, the course ended with a summary that reiterated the humane assessment concepts and presented them from the point of view of the discussions.

As for the way the course was received ... well, nobody felt asleep. Here are some testimonials:

An interesting insight in what can be considered a very promising approach. The course is mainly based on open discussions and case studies. This was very helpful in getting a concrete idea about the real impact of applying such a methodology in a real context.
Andrea Caracciolo, Junior Researcher, University of Bern

It's a pleasure listening to Doru.
Max Leske, Software Engineer

Humane assessment is all about taking decisions on facts, not instinct.
Erwann Wernli, PhD student

Data driven decision making is useful to make good decisions and to avoid boring meetings. It should be part of the culture of every company.
Lukas Renggli