Software development is a human activity prone to human error. These errors are partially related to losing situation awareness during development tasks. Situation awareness enables the retention of contextual knowledge while performing a task. The OODA loop is an established cognitive training method to improve situation awareness. We studied the in-situ development errors that ten professional software developers made before and after using the OODA loop. Our preliminary results suggest that developer errors reduce after OODA loop use. We recommend that developers: get to know their own development weaknesses, use cognitive training (e.g., OODA loop) to manage those weaknesses, simplify their working environment and communicate carefully with external stakeholders.
