What happens when your brain loves puzzles… but struggles with where to start? Paige Watson shares how ADHD shapes his work as a developer—and how practices like TDD, mob programming, and discovery trees help him stay focused, move forward, and actually enjoy the ride.

Overview

In this episode of the Agile Mentors Podcast, Brian Milner is joined by Paige Watson, a technical coach, seasoned XP practitioner, and self-proclaimed “code crafter.” Paige shares his firsthand experience navigating ADHD as a software developer, and how practices like Test-Driven Development (TDD), ensemble programming, and visual planning (like Discovery Trees) have helped him find sustainable focus and flow.

Together, Brian and Paige unpack how small, iterative steps and collaborative team dynamics can support not just neurodivergent developers, but everyone on the team. Whether you're navigating ADHD yourself, leading a diverse team, or just want to write better, more maintainable code—this episode is packed with thoughtful insights and practical takeaways.

References and resources mentioned in the show:

Paige Watson

Paige Watson’s ADHD Blog Posts

#76: Navigating Neurodiversity for High-Performing Teams with Susan Fitzell

#123: Unlocking Team Intelligence with Linda Rising

Scrum Foundations

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This episode’s presenters are:

Brian Milner is a Certified Scrum Trainer®, Certified Scrum Professional®, Certified ScrumMaster®, and Certified Scrum Product Owner®, and host of the Agile Mentors Podcast training at Mountain Goat Software. He's passionate about making a difference in people's day-to-day work, influenced by his own experience of transitioning to Scrum and seeing improvements in work/life balance, honesty, respect, and the quality of work.

Paige Watson is a passionate advocate for “Quality Software as Craft,” known for transforming developers into high-performing, cohesive teams. With deep experience guiding software teams and leading workshops for global companies, he helps build elegant, scalable systems designed for longevity and real-world impact.

Auto-generated Transcript:

Brian Milner (00:00 )

Welcome in Agile Mentors. We are back for another episode of the Agile Mentors podcast. I'm with you always Brian Milner. And today I have Mr. Paige Watson with us. Welcome in Paige. Really excited to have Paige here. We kind of crossed paths with Paige because of some posts that he had done.

Paige Watson (00:11 )

Thank you.

Brian Milner (00:19 )

He is a technical coach and has been in the development community for a long time and is an XP practitioner, right? Did I hear you correctly say that?

Paige Watson (00:27 )

Yes, I like to use the term code crafter, but yes, a lot of the things I do are XP centric. Yes.

Brian Milner (00:31 )

Nice. I love that, Codecrafter. Then the post that kind of got our attention was a series of posts, actually, that Paige had done about really ADHD and software development. And as people who have listened to this show for a while know, we've done a couple episodes around neurodiversity and neurodiverse traits. and how that bleeds into our work in the software industry. There's plenty of stats showing that there's an unusually large percentage of people in this profession that have some form of neurodiversity. The topics were how he manages ADHD and works. The first one I thought was an interesting title, talked about it being a bug or a feature. So tell us a little bit about what kind of got you started in exploring this.

Paige Watson (01:21 )

Yeah. So I go to a three-day open space that we have in the Northwest. I'm in the Seattle area. And one of the sessions that we had was something, I forget the exact title, but it was around neuro-spiciness in the workplace. And the whole idea was let's get a bunch of people who are neuro-spicy. for lack of a better term, and find out what works for you at work. What are things you need? How do you make sure that what you need is being said out loud? how do you make your work better? So this was a great discussion that we had. And I came out of it going, a lot of the things that I do, a lot of the practices and processes that I use, are actually really helpful for me in my ADHD. So then I sat down and thought, well, first I thought this would be a great conference talk. So I wrote that. And then I was like, I bet this would be a great series of blog posts as well. So I wrote those.

Brian Milner (02:24 )

Ha ha. Yeah.

Paige Watson (02:32 )

It turns out it is a pretty good conference talk, if I say so myself. I get a lot of really good feedback. And honestly, the discussion after I do the presentation is almost better a lot of the time, because you're right. There is a lot of people that, whether they've been diagnosed or they self-identify, whether it's ADHD or autism or anything, there's a lot of that that

Brian Milner (02:37 )

Hahaha.

Paige Watson (02:56 )

that I think we see existing in our software. you know, area that we don't, I don't want to say it's more, I don't have like a definitive study or anything like that that says it's more people in software, but it seems like it. And I sometimes wonder whether that's just me, you know, seeing people because I'm in the software industry or whether there's a draw towards it.

Brian Milner (03:22 )

Yeah, there was a study that I, because I did a conference talk on neurodiversity and software development a while back too, and there was a study that I found out at the University of Texas that basically the only correlation I could find was saying that young people who were entering college and choosing majors were choosing actually it was people on the autism spectrum of some kind were choosing careers in computer science at a rate that was three times essentially that of the general public. So it's not all the neurodivergent traits, but it is one flavor of that. I just don't, maybe there's just not a study on the others, but I... I agree with you. think just from my experience, working in software and managing people in software and developing myself, the people I've kind of been around and worked around, now that I'm more aware of neurodiverse traits, it seems like, yeah, that seems very much like this is going on. That seems like that's going on. And it just starts to make sense a little bit more. Yeah.

Paige Watson (04:24 )

Yeah, yeah. And I wonder, you know, I kind of look back and like, I like to play board games a lot. you know, I like, I have a model railroad and I like the aspect of not just watching the trains go around, although there's probably a maim in there somewhere, but I like sort of operating it like a model railroad. How do I get these cars over there to the green elevator in the fewest moves? There's a puzzle solving aspect. And one day I was like, I like to do that in my work too. You know, and is that part of the the neuro spiciness? I don't know. But you know, it's definitely a draw as to why I like development.

Brian Milner (04:56 )

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I want to dive into some of the things that you uncover in your talk and in the blog post that you wrote. What were some of the discoveries that you realized as you were looking into this?

Paige Watson (05:17 )

So, like, first off, let me preface by saying I'm not a doctor, you know, and if you have, if you think you're, you know, if you think you have ADHD or want to know more about it, please talk to your medical provider. That's really important.

Brian Milner (05:21 )

Yeah. Yes.

Paige Watson (05:34 )

And I can only really talk for my ADHD because ADHD comes in so many varieties. Yes, there are certain things that happen together, but there's so many sort comorbid aspects to it that I only really want to talk about mine and touch on some other things I've seen maybe, but just that caveat. What was really interesting is that I used to think that I ADHD was about not being able to focus. But it's about not being able to control the focus. Because sometimes I can't focus at all. There's lots of things going on. That whole, squirrel, that sort of thing. And then there are other times when I can hyper-focus. And this is where my talk comes. My talk I call Focus Flow on Co-Coffee.

Brian Milner (06:13 )

Yeah.

Paige Watson (06:21 )

And the whole idea is that I go and sit down at my desk with a cup of coffee, and I'm ready to go. And I start typing, and I go to take a sip, and the coffee's cold. And I forgot to go to lunch again. So it's not really about not having focus. It's about not being able to fully control where