Programming & AI
Everything You Wanted to Know About Anarchy (But Were Afraid to Ask)
Andrew Harmel-Law - Technical principal @ ThoughtWorks
Conference hall
13th November, 11:00-12:00
“Patterns of Anarchy” is a collection of writings published in 1966. We should care about it as software professionals because a) Christopher Alexander quotes from it in “A Pattern Language” and b) it offers perspectives on different patterns of self-organizing what are increasingly relevant in a flow-and-team-topologies world.
This talk takes inspiration from the book section “Constructive Anarchism: Alternative Communities and Programs” that covers the *how* of anarchist organisation. I'll work through its key points, explaining what anarchist thought has to offer us, particularly in the world of socio-technical organisation design. I'll also mix in viewpoints and approaches from other anarchist ways of self-organizing.
At the end of it you'll have a greater awareness of alternatives to the top-down, hierarchical approaches that dominate everything we do in software. It might even help you unlock those high-performing teams you've been searching for so desperately.
Andrew Harmel-Law
ThoughtWorks
A highly enthusiastic Tech Principal; Andrew specialises in Java / JVM technologies, agile delivery, build tools and automation, and domain driven design.
Experienced across the software development lifecycle and in many sectors including government, banking, and eCommerce, what motivates him is the production of large-scale software solutions, fulfilling complex client requirements. He understands that people, tooling, architecture and process all have key roles to play in achieving this.
Andrew has a passion for open source software and its communities. He has been interested in and involved with OSS to a greater or lesser extent since his career began; as a user, contributor, expert group member, or paid advocate.
Finally, Andrew enjoys sharing his experience as much as possible. This sharing is not only seen in his formal consulting engagements, but also informally through mentoring, blog posts, conferences (speaking and organising), and open sourcing his code.
