Thursday, November 12 at 11:00 am EST | Virtual Session

ADHD can feel like constant motion—an abundance of ideas, shifting focus, and competing priorities. For many professionals, this can create challenges with attention, memory, and sustained productivity. This session explores how proven software development practices—such as Test-Driven Development (TDD), collaborative programming, and discovery techniques—can support individuals to work more effectively with their cognitive patterns. Drawing on personal experience, you will learn how these approaches can reduce cognitive load, improve focus, and enable more consistent outcomes. The session also highlights practical ways to create team environments that support neurodiversity, benefiting both individuals and overall team performance.

By the end of this session, you will be able to:

• Understand how ADHD-related traits can influence software development and how these traits can be leveraged as strengths.
• Apply practices such as Test-Driven Development (TDD), collaborative programming (including mob programming), and discovery techniques to reduce cognitive load and improve productivity.
• Identify strategies to build neurodiversity-friendly team environments that promote structure, collaboration, and sustainable work practices.

Meet your speaker

Paige Watson is a software development practitioner and advocate for quality-focused, human-centered engineering practices. He emphasizes the principles of “quality software as craft,” recognizing that building sustainable, scalable systems requires both technical excellence and thoughtful design. Paige has extensive experience guiding teams to improve their development practices, enabling them to deliver maintainable, high-quality software while evolving into cohesive, high-performing units. He is also an active speaker and educator, leading workshops and sessions for global organizations to share practical strategies for improving software development outcomes and team effectiveness.