What Are Heuristics?

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Lena Nyström's profile
Lena Nyström

Engineering manager, Author and Public Speaker

Sarah Deery's profile
Sarah Deery

Learning and Development Lead

Talk Description

What are heuristics?

Heuristics are approaches that we use to solve a problem that is similar to a problem we know how to solve, but not necessarily the same.

Got any examples?

Yeah. I think the most, clear one is doors. First time we come across a door, we don't know how it works. But as we learn how doors work, it becomes easier and easier to understand different kinds of doors.

So different types of handles or sliding doors suddenly become easy to to understand. An example from software development would be CRUD, which I find very useful. Create, read, update, delete, which is basically what ninety percent of our software does. We create posts, we read posts, we update them, and we delete them.

What are the benefits?

I guess the biggest benefit is we don't have to invent the wheel every time, so it becomes easier to solve problems as we add more knowledge about similar problems.

Any pitfalls?

They are models of they aren't the truth, so they are fallible. And, of course, we tend to make a lot of assumptions, and those assumptions might be wrong. Fantastic. So now we know about heuristics.

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Lena Nyström's profile'

Lena Nyström

Engineering manager, Author and Public Speaker

Lena has been building software since 1999. After a decade of coding they found their heart in testing and that is close to their heart even today when they focus on building organisations and growing people rather than the software itself. Continuous improvement is a core value and they believe we should all strive to keep up to date and challenge ourselves, our assumptions and the way things are done. Lena is the author and creator of "Would Heu-risk it?" (card deck and book), avid blogger, speaker and workshop facilitator. On top of that, Lena combines skills learned through the years in their day job as Engineering Manager. Lena lives outside of Stockholm, Sweden with teenage kids, partner and way too much games, sewing machines and books.
Sarah Deery's profile'

Sarah Deery

Learning and Development Lead

Sarah Deery is the Learning and Development Lead at Ministry of Testing. Her main aim is to help software testers turn their vast knowledge and skills into bite-sized chunks suitable for the community to digest. She used to do things in her spare time but now she has a toddler.
So, Lena, what are heuristics?
Heuristics are approaches that we use to solve a problem that
is similar to a problem we know how to solve,
but not necessarily the same.
Got any examples?
Yeah. I think the most, clear one is doors.
First time we come across a door, we don't know how it works.
But as we learn how doors work, it becomes easier
and easier to understand different kinds of doors.
So different types of handles or sliding doors suddenly
become easy to to understand.
An example from software development would be CRUD,
which I find very useful.
Create, read, update, delete,
which is basically what ninety percent of our software does.
We create posts, we read posts, we update them, and we delete them.
What are the benefits?
I guess the biggest benefit is we don't have to invent the
wheel every time, so it becomes easier to solve problems as
we add more knowledge about similar problems.
Any pitfalls?
They are models of they aren't the truth, so they are fallible.
And, of course, we tend to make a lot of assumptions,
and those assumptions might be wrong.
Fantastic. So now we know about heuristics.
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