Game Theory and the Art of Teamwork in Software Development
summary
Claim: applying iterative Prisoner’s Dilemma to engineering teams produces concrete tactics not platitudes. Evidence: a tournament of 14 submitted strategies plus a random player shows tit for tat scores highest overall despite never winning any single round. Tools: algorithmic simulations, point payoffs, live audience pairing and voting. Surprising numbers: 14 entrants and the “never wins a round yet wins overall” result. Concrete fixes: restructure payoffs, nice, retaliating, forgiving behavior, enlarge the shadow of the future, and tie recognition to cross‑team cooperation so the approach actually shifts outcomes.
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chapters (16)
- 0:00Teamwork introduction
- 1:07Selfishness in regression testing
- 2:33Prisoner's dilemma explained
- 6:24Prisoner's dilemma outcomes
- 8:10Game theory in daily life
- 9:56Why cooperation fails
- 10:18Iterative prisoner's dilemma
- 14:34Tit-for-tat strategy
- 15:59Environment and teamwork
- 18:06Test automation dilemma
- 20:13Engineering team cooperation
- 26:35Catalyst for change
- 27:17Personal success catch
- 28:40Cooperative teamwork benefits
- 29:01Call to action
- 29:23Q&A
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