#162: Focus, Flow, Cold Coffee, and the ADHD Developer with Paige Watson

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 Subscribe to the Agile Mentors Podcast Want to get involved? This show is designed for you, and we’d love your input. Enjoyed what you heard today? Please leave a rating and a review. It really helps, and we read every single one. Got an Agile subject you’d like us to discuss or a question that needs an answer? Share your thoughts with us at podcast@mountaingoatsoftware.com 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 Se