HoEN: Making sense of everything competing for attention in your system

How do you make sense of everything competing for attention in your software engineering system?

At Wires Uncrossed, we’ve found that the Hierarchy of Engineering Needs (HoEN) offers a powerful way to see the system, not just its parts.

Our HoEN blends Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, industry research, and lived engineering experience to help teams prioritise what actually matters. Just like humans need food and shelter before self-actualisation, engineering systems need stable foundations before chasing higher order practices.

We have found that often organisations invest in advanced tooling or practices, like Continuous Delivery or Observability, while core needs like Version Control, Build Hygiene, or CI are still shaky. HoEN helps make that visible.

What can HoEN help with?

• Jump-starting engineering strategy

• Justifying enablement investment

• Prioritising initiatives

• Communicating with stakeholders

• Aligning shared responsibility across teams

  
  

It’s not just to be used as a maturity model—it’s a thinking model that helps cut through the noise and guide improvement in flow, quality, and delivery performance.

We’re excited to see how others use it to shape better systems and stronger teams.

Explore the model → engineeringneeds.io 

Open-source repo → GitHub - Hierarchy of Engineering Needs