Interview with Dan North

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The Interviewer

Mike Hall

Interviewer, community organizer at UGtastic

The Guest

Dan North

Originator of BDD, Software Craftsmanship and Organizational Consultant

The Conversation

Mike Hall Interviewer, community organizer at UGtastic
Hi, it's Mike again with UGtastic. I'm still here at GOTO Chicago, they haven't kicked me out yet. I'm sitting down with Dan North. Dan is known as the father of BDD—Behavior Driven Development. You are the one who wrote the first paper, description, and first implementations. I also think it's fascinating that you're kind of an iconoclast who likes to question dogma. Over the last seven years, BDD has become dogma. What is it like to be someone who created something that has now been accepted as a dogmatic thing?
Dan North Originator of BDD, Software Craftsmanship and Organizational Consultant
As a dogma, I think, yeah. So this to me comes down to experience. When you have someone who is a novice in a particular area, they want to just find a thing that works. They want rules, structure, and they want to be able to just follow a recipe to get quick wins. This is part of learning theory—how we operate while we gain context. Once we've got a bunch of experience, we can start making good decisions. Now, people pick up something without context and say, 'Right, well then this must be how it works.' They are uncomfortable with uncertainty and the idea that we can't know some things, so they fill in the blanks. I've deliberately never been that prescriptive about what BDD is, because to me it isn't a set of practices. It's a way of engaging and trying to get work done.
Mike Hall Interviewer, community organizer at UGtastic
Yeah, it's a way of thinking about a problem.
Dan North Originator of BDD, Software Craftsmanship and Organizational Consultant
Yeah. And Liz Keogh says this really well: it's about the conversations. Everything comes back to the conversations. The only BDD tool that matters is the one in your head. Everything else is just detail. You get these camps—the Cucumber camps, the JBehave camps—and then this world of misinformation about BDD only working at a high level while you use TDD for the rest. All of that is a basic misunderstanding of what I was trying to do.
Mike Hall Interviewer, community organizer at UGtastic
It sounds like as soon as an idea is around for a while, people make it 'their thing' to sound definite about it.
Dan North Originator of BDD, Software Craftsmanship and Organizational Consultant
Right, 'I'm a BDD consultant, pay me bucks.' I have a working theory—only observational—that people start selling certifications in things when they think it's the last good idea they're going to have. They think, 'I'm going to monetize this thing.' I never wanted to monetize BDD because you shouldn't try to lock down ideas. I came across a lovely quote: 'If you want an idea to travel, you shouldn't try and travel with it.' I really like that. Don't assign it to your personality. Put it out there.
Dan North Originator of BDD, Software Craftsmanship and Organizational Consultant
BDD started as me trying to coach TDD better because I love TDD. People hear me bashing on TDD, but I'm not—I'm bashing on TDD zealots. TDD is a pattern in the Alexandrian sense. It's a strategy that works well in a particular situation to resolve certain forces. There are places where it's the first thing I'll reach for, and other places where it's just going to slow me down or lead me to a wrong solution. People say, 'Dan North is in on copying and pasting code.' I am! There is a specific context in which I want to do that. It's one of my Accelerated Agile patterns called Ginger Cake. It's a useful strategy to have in your pocket given certain constraints.
Mike Hall Interviewer, community organizer at UGtastic
I want to go back to what you said about the 'last idea.' I've heard that in music too—artists protecting copyright because they don't know if they'll have another hit.
Dan North Originator of BDD, Software Craftsmanship and Organizational Consultant
Right! So it's a human way of thinking about problems. Humans do this when confronted with the fear of 'this is all I've got.' Linda Rising was talking about this yesterday: Loss Aversion. The idea that having a thing and potentially losing it is much more compelling than the reward of gaining it. She talked about how offering a bonus for performance can actually end up being a disincentive if not managed carefully.
Mike Hall Interviewer, community organizer at UGtastic
I've seen that at companies. 'We're doing a bonus,' and then at bonus time it's, 'Well, we're pulling the belt tighter.' And people leave because of that sense of loss.
Dan North Originator of BDD, Software Craftsmanship and Organizational Consultant
It reminds me of an interview with Alanis Morissette. Her first album was angry music, her second was happy music because she was in love. Fans were furious because they associated her with that anger. In our industry, there's a cult of personality where you associate someone with something. Some folks in the Agile space do the same thing again and again. Someone who is the antithesis of that is Michael Feathers. He wrote the classic book on Legacy Code, but he's always on to something new—looking at how codebases evolve. I call it the 'Noun Problem.' Once you get a noun as your middle name, like 'The BDD Guy,' you're stuck. BDD was just one step on a journey.
Mike Hall Interviewer, community organizer at UGtastic
I remember reading your BDD posts back in '06 or '07. I was doing .NET and I wanted to understand what you were trying to say. I can see how that thought process evolves into following the person to understand the idea.
Dan North Originator of BDD, Software Craftsmanship and Organizational Consultant
Well, and this is why I name-drop as furiously as I do. What I want is a culture of people looking at these ideas—Specification by Example, Liz Keogh's work, or Chris Matts with Real Options. I'm really enjoying seeing that evolve.
Mike Hall Interviewer, community organizer at UGtastic
Well, thank you very much for taking the time to talk, Dan. I always enjoy our conversations.
Dan North Originator of BDD, Software Craftsmanship and Organizational Consultant
My pleasure, Mike.

Critical Insights

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"The 'Noun Problem' is a professional trap for innovators; being pigeonholed as 'The [Concept] Guy' can lead to dogmatic stagnation and prevent both the individual and the idea from evolving."
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"Renaming 'Test' to 'Behavior' in the early days of TDD was a linguistic shift designed to move the focus from technical verification to stakeholder communication and business value."
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"Certifications and the monetization of technical ideas often signal a 'loss aversion' mindset, where practitioners lock down a single successful concept rather than continuing to innovate."
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"Technological patterns like TDD or copying-and-pasting (the 'Ginger Cake' pattern) are not absolute rules but contextual strategies that resolve specific forces within an environment."
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"'If you want an idea to travel, you shouldn't try and travel with it'—the impact of a technical concept is maximized when the creator releases control and allows the community to expand upon it."