Terry Yin
Terry Yin is a seasoned software product developer with nearly 30 years of hands-on experience and leadership. Terry specializes in helping large-scale software development organizations cultivate teams that align with versatile business needs. His deep understanding of the dynamics of large-scale development enables him to seamlessly integrate technical execution with strategic business objectives.
Terry Yin is an Adaptive Coach of Odd-e team. Terry has been working at Nokia for 10 years mostly in R&D management and Agile transformation before joining Odd-e. He has coached Large Scale Scrum and software development technical practices in a large variety of software companies. Terry has been an active programmer for more than 25 years, crossing many domains. He’s open source software static analyser (https://github.com/terryyin/lizard) is used in many large organization, e.g. Nokia, Ericsson and even the Atlas experiment at CERN. He’s also the developer of the https://less.works web site. He’s also an experienced trainer and conference speaker.
Primary training, consulting, and coaching clients.
Human Centric Software Development Augmented by AI
In this experience report, I will share a unique journey of embedding AI-augmented approaches into a human-centric software development environment with my client, a large-scale software company characterized by multiple-layered microservices, cross-team collaborations, and significant legacy system integrations.
Over several months, we experimented with leveraging AI agents to accelerate software development while navigating the complexity of microservice-intensive architectures and legacy codebases. This practical engagement explored innovative ways to maintain developer productivity, ensure software quality, and enhance developer experience through rapid feedback loops and iterative practices, all within the framework of LeSS
1. Throughout our journey, we observed how integrating AI tools influenced both technical practices and human dynamics—introducing new opportunities as well as unexpected emotional challenges and workflow complexities. This session will provide insights into:
2. How AI-assisted methods can complement human-centric agile practices, especially within LeSS.
3. Lessons learned from balancing rapid technological innovation with stable and legacy-intensive environments.
Real-world impacts on developer motivation, productivity, and emotional dynamics when adopting AI tools.
Workshop—Small Test: A Replacement for Unit Test in the AI Era
As AI-assisted development becomes the new normal, our understanding of what makes a good automated test needs to evolve. The traditional notion of “unit tests” — often focused on isolated code units and heavy mocking — no longer serves us well in AI-augmented workflows.
In this hands-on workshop, we’ll explore the concept of Small Test: a test that focuses on a small unit of behavior rather than a small unit of code. We'll discuss how this approach better aligns with modern development practices, especially when collaborating with AI tools that generate code, infer context, and modify structure rapidly.
Participants will:
1. Contrast traditional unit tests with the small test philosophy
2. Practice identifying and writing small tests in an AI-assisted environment
3. Learn how to shift their testing strategy to favor behavioral feedback over architectural purity
4. Discuss the future of testing when human reasoning and AI collaboration meet
This session is ideal for developers, technical leads who want to rethink their approach to software development in a rapidly evolving landscape.
Disclaimer: the workshop is not about AI and requires no AI tools of any kind.
Participants need to have a laptop.