Deliberate Practice and Continuous Improvement in Software Teams

Have you ever done something for years and still felt like you weren’t getting any better at it? I’ve been reading Grit by Angela Duckworth recently and really enjoying it. One idea in particular has stuck with me - deliberate practice. You’ve probably heard the claim that it takes around 10,000 hours to become an expert at something. It’s a neat idea, but it raises an obvious question. Say you’ve been out for a run every other day for the last 10 years. You’ve easily clocked up more than 10,000 hours, so why aren’t you running like an Olympian? The answer is that not all practice is equal. So what is deliberate practice? Duckworth draws on the research of psychologist Anders Ericsson, who studied how experts in fields like music and sport train. The thing that sets them apart isn’t just the hours. It’s what they do inside those hours: They set a specific, stretching goal - not “get better”, but “shave ten seconds off my mile pace”. They give it their full attention and effort. They…