Last week I finished another talk, “The Beginner’s Mind” for QCon London in the Software Craftsmanship track hosted by Kevlin Henney. The track focused on the craftsmanship aspect, not what the term “Software Craftsmanship” was or whether or not people should do it.

I hung around the track all day, and enjoyed the well researched talk given by Glenn Vanderburg, the entertaining video and talks by Jon Jagger and the good advice Roy Osherove had on team leads. My talk focused on understanding the paradox that comes from developing expertise as you learn and how to go about avoiding the situation where you end up reducing the amount you learn.

I had some great feedback from some of the participants, many nodding heads and I hope that people go away more aware of what is happenning as they learn and specific examples on how to keep the state of The Beginner’s Mind open. Slides from the session are available here.