My notes from Jeff Susna's talk at Velocity Conf EU 2014

Better Service Through Promise Theory

 

Disclaimer: some of this seems too simple to be useful. That's sort of the point.

 

Intention + Expression = Benefit

BUT

may or may not come to pass

 

Microservices as an organisational pattern

 

Service is:

* an experience

* a relationship

* co-creation

 

eg AirBnB – 'The product is the trip'; not booking somewhere to stay

 

Promises come with trust (X has made a promise, how likely is it to be fulfilled?)

 

Trust varies over time. Some technology examples:

* auto-scaling

* circuit breaker

* Continuous Integration

* designing from failure

 

Promise Theory helps span boundaries. It can be used to write stories / acceptance criteria.

 

References:

* Mark Burgess – In Search of Certainty

* Bergstra / Burgess – Promise Theory

* Winograd / Flores – Understanding Computers and Cognition

Done