Stoicism in software development

Stoic principles in everyday software life mean: Focus on what you can actually influence, namely your decision-making, not on results that depend on external factors. Three approaches help here: questioning the focus on results, thinking ahead to negative scenarios and evaluating decisions according to the 10-10-10 rule, i.e. by impact in ten minutes, ten months and ten years.

Key Takeaways

• Stoic decision quality does not depend on the outcome: Those who judge decisions only by their outcome confuse luck with good judgment.
• The principle of “premeditatio malorum” recommends actively planning for negative scenarios, because bad outcomes are not bad luck, but foreseeable possibilities.
• The 10-10-10 method sharpens decisions by combining three time horizons: the effect in 10 minutes, 10 months and 10 years.
• A decision-making protocol, as practiced by Marcus Aurelius in his meditations, makes the decision-making process visible and thus learnable.
• The stoic virtue of moderation protects teams from carrying out experiments and measures simply because they are technically possible.

What stoicism means for product development

Stoicism is an ancient philosophy that can be applied practically: in private life and when working on products. It was coined by names such as Seneca, the slave Epictetus and the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, who tried to govern according to Stoic principles.

Maryse Meinen works as a product owner in the field of infrastructure and applies these principles to her day-to-day work. Her journey there began privately, after the birth of her daughter, and moved from there into her career.

The Stoics’ practical approach is crucial for the transfer. They did not want a philosophy for monasteries or mountain peaks, but an attitude in the middle of society. Marcus Aurelius put it in a nutshell: stop talking about what makes a good person and just be one.

You control less than you think

The core of Stoicism is the separation between what you can influence and what is beyond your control. The Stoics say: most things are outside. The opinions of others, your body, your health, the course of events, the weather.

You can only control what happens in your head: your perception, how you see and categorize things. That’s where you actually have a choice.

This idea has direct consequences for product development. It leads to the thesis that the result is not a good fixed point because too many external factors influence it.

Why you should rethink the result

Product teams almost reflexively focus on outcomes. Ask any Agile coach, scrum master or product owner and the answer is: outcome-oriented. Maryse counters this with a stoic counter-argument.

You can’t influence the outcome because there are too many factors at play. What you can influence is your decision-making: how you arrive at a decision.

Instead of just focusing on growth, more customers and more clicks, it’s worth applying a moral compass. Stoic values such as courage, justice and moderation can form this compass. Make decisions based on these values, not on an outcome that is out of your hands anyway.

Anticipate the bad before it happens

The Stoic principle of “premeditatio malorum” means thinking through bad things in advance and preparing for them. Life is unfair, bad things happen to everyone, and this is not an exceptional run of bad luck, but normal.

A simple picture: If you’re planning a wedding in Munich in October, you should expect the weather to change. You can’t control the weather itself. What you can do is prepare.

This principle has long been known in testing. Testers don’t just check the happy flow. They assume that something will go wrong. Exactly the same attitude belongs in product planning.

Scenario planning follows from this. You develop scenarios for your product goals and consciously play through the negative scenarios, not just the ideal ones.

How the 10-10-10 principle changes decisions

The 10-10-10 principle looks at every decision over three time horizons: the next 10 minutes, the next 10 months and the next 10 years. Maryse adopted it from a book by former professional poker player Annie Duke.

Product teams usually only think in a short window. What does this decision do for me now? Sometimes that’s right. If you’re standing in front of the road at a red light, you should think exactly in the 10-second horizon.

That’s not enough to make important decisions. You have to play through the same step for 10 months and 10 years. Only the long horizon is the real stoic perspective.

Balance is important. The principle is not an invitation to fall back into pure long-term planning and overlook the obvious. You live and decide in your current situation. The 10-10-10 view only brings the wider perspective closer.

Evaluate decisions according to their quality, not the result

People judge a decision by how it turned out. Annie Duke calls this “resulting”, and it’s a mistake in thinking. The quality of the result says nothing about the quality of the decision.

An example: someone quits their job for a fancy start-up. If the start-up is sold and the person becomes rich, it’s a good decision. If the start-up goes bust and the person is left burnt out and financially ruined, it’s a bad decision. The decision itself was identical in both cases. Only the result was different.

We tend to judge decisions by the outcome, not by the actual quality of the decision making.

• Maryse Meinen

Those who internalize this stop celebrating themselves for good throws and castigating themselves for bad ones, and instead look at the process behind them.

Keep a decision diary

Reflection is a core Stoic principle. We only know Stoic philosophy at all because Marcus Aurelius kept his “Meditations” as a diary, partly while he was in the field in Germania.

A decision log is recommended for your professional and private life: a diary about how you make decisions, not about how they turn out. This keeps you away from the resulting and makes your process visible.

There are several concrete steps to help you keep such a log:

• Collect data where you can, but accept that you will never know everything.
• Make decisions smaller, just as you reduce the size of large items when refining to keep an overview.
• Place smaller stakes instead of big bets.
• Make a note of when and under what circumstances you make good decisions. Without haste, without time pressure, without the hunger of a long working day.

There will always be decisions under pressure. But if you make a habit of writing in your diary, you will train yourself to have an inner voice that speaks up at the right moment: This feels good for the next 10 minutes, but probably not in the long term.

Moderation means: not doing everything that is possible

Moderation is a stoic value that can be directly translated to product work. It means restraint: not reacting to the first impulse, not immediately implementing what seems feasible.

A common misunderstanding should be cleared up. Stoicism does not mean having no feelings. People have feelings. The idea is not to react to them reflexively, because your own judgment is the only thing you can control.

Many unusual experiments can be carried out in the infrastructure, simply because the skills are there. This is where moderation comes into play with two questions: Do we really have to do this? And do we really have to do it now?

Maryse half-jokingly describes herself as a lazy product owner who prefers not to do something unless it’s really necessary. This is not laziness, but applied restraint. A good product owner says no when in doubt.

Turn inwards and trust your compass

The fourth, supplementary lesson is to turn inwards. There are countless things a team could do. Sometimes the better move is to take a step back and act more prudently.

This can be meditation or another form of contemplation. The book title “Meditations” by Marcus Aurelius already carries this idea in its name.

Retreat does not mean withdrawing from society. You remain part of it. You just step aside for a moment, go into yourself and trust your own moral compass before moving on.