I’ve been a Delivery Lead at Atomic for many years now. Prior to that, I served our teams as a designer. And prior to that, I spent my career working at full service branding and marketing agencies, creative directing photo shoots, building new brands, and designing packaging.
My roots are in art. I hold a BFA, and I am very comfortable when covered in ink or paint. I’m telling you this, reader, so you understand that, although I do thoroughly enjoy process, I love feel.
What the Heck is Feel?
Great question. The concept of “feel” might mean different things to different people, and it can vary depending on the context. To me, feel refers to your intuition—your ability to sense and respond to small, often unpatterned signals that something needs attention or adjustment. It’s a kind of experienced intuition, built over time through observation, empathy, and attention to detail.
Feel feels rooted in art to me. It’s not a documented or data-driven approach. It’s that quiet knowing that comes from deep familiarity. It’s the way an artist knows when a painting is done. Not because every box on a checklist is ticked, but because it simply feels right.
That sense doesn’t come from guesswork. It comes from time, craft, and presence. It comes from seeing enough projects, people, and problems to recognize the subtle shifts that signal change, even when they don’t show up in the metrics.
That same sense of feel shows up outside of art too. In software delivery, it’s what helps you sense when something isn’t quite working even though everything looks fine on paper. It’s the gut check that tells you a client is uneasy, a team is drifting, or a process that used to serve you well is starting to hold you back. Feel bridges the gap between what the data says and what your instincts know.
Why Should I Care About Feel in Software?
You’re full of good questions. There are plenty of parts of the software product lifecycle that thrive on process. Estimation, deployment, QA, and backlog refinement all benefit from structure and consistency. I’m not suggesting we throw any of that out. In fact, I love a good process.
But the truth is, process alone can’t catch everything. There are moments in every project when the path forward isn’t clear, when the data doesn’t tell the whole story, or when following the plan would quietly steer you in the wrong direction. Those are the moments that call for feel.
Feel helps you notice when a client says “looks great” but their body language says “I’m not sure.” Feel helps you sense when your team is drained, even though the sprint metrics look fine. Feel tells you it’s time to pause a conversation that’s going nowhere, or to press on when things are tough but still purposeful.
Creating software is full of micro-decisions that don’t live in Jira, Figma, or a project plan. They live in conversations, relationships, and small moments of judgment. That’s where feel shines. It helps you adapt without overreacting, guide without controlling, and deliver without losing the humanity that makes the work worthwhile.
How Can I Develop Feel?
Feel doesn’t appear overnight. It’s something you build slowly through experience, reflection, and curiosity. The more projects you work on, the more you start to recognize the signals that something is off. It might be a shift in tone, a sense of hesitation, or a pattern in feedback that doesn’t quite align with the data.
Developing feel isn’t about ignoring structure; it’s about learning to read between the lines of it. Here are a few ways to practice:
Observe Before You Act.
In any given moment, resist the urge to jump straight into problem-solving. This can be really hard for those of us who are wired to help. Resist the temptation! Instead, pause and watch. How is the team interacting? How does the client respond to updates? What’s the energy in the room? Observation is required to build pattern recognition.
Ask, Don’t Assume.
Your instincts are a starting point, not a verdict. When something feels off, ask questions. “Can you tell me more about that hesitation?” or “How are you feeling about the direction we’re heading?” Curiosity turns gut feelings into shared understanding. Sometimes our assumptions are wrong. Don’t beat yourself up over it. Instead, view it as a way of calibrating your feel.
Reflect Regularly.
After big meetings or tough moments, take a few minutes to think about what happened and why. This sounds silly, but I mean it. Don’t rush to your next meeting or task. Reflect. What signals did you notice? What did you miss? Reflection is how you turn experiences into wisdom.
Balance Data with Empathy.
Metrics are helpful, but they can’t tell you how people feel. Pair the quantitative with the qualitative. Listen to tone, energy, and engagement as closely as you read reports or sprint charts.
Build Psychological Safety.
Feel thrives in environments where people speak honestly. When teammates and clients know they can share real feedback, it becomes much easier to sense and respond to subtle shifts early.
Feel doesn’t replace process. It enhances it. Process gives you confidence that the essentials are covered. Feel gives you the sensitivity to notice what the process doesn’t.
The Art of the Balance
The best delivery work lives in the space between structure and instinct. Too much process, and things get rigid. Too much feel, and things get chaotic. The art lies in knowing when to lean on one and when to trust the other.
Balancing process with feel doesn’t mean abandoning discipline. It means practicing awareness. It’s about being steady enough to follow the plan, and flexible enough to change it when the situation calls for something different. Sometimes that means running a textbook retro. Sometimes it means skipping the textbook retro and taking everyone out for coffee instead. Both can be the right move.
And in the end, that’s what makes software delivery a craft.