The second ground to introduce Dragons are emotions. Software development is a humans' activity. The problems and mistakes are humans' problems and mistakes. Consequently they are bound with strong emotions. Nobody can speak about personal errors without feelings. Even the phrase ``I had made an error'' is accepted different as ``An error had been made by me.''
Emotions disturb the analyse of problems. They hide and distort information. They make a point of view very subjective. As result each error analyse becomes the game of the searching of a scapegoat.
To avoid this problem we need use something that isn't bound with strong feelings. Virtual software monsters are good tool for this purpose. We have seen such situation with software bugs. It's simpler to speak about virtual monsters than abut personal mistakes.
The strongest of emotions in software projects is the fear. It is the cause of many mistakes. Fear paralyses the human's logic and force to make bad decisions. Very frequently people say, ``I know how to make it proper, but I cannot act in such way.'' To abstract from the source of the human's fear we can consider a Dragon. The human may be afraid of a Dragon. The Dragon is big enough and harmful enough to force the human make the same mistakes.
The analyse of feelings in a group of people is a complex and expensive measure. Sometimes collective emotions are more powerful than one separate team member has. Evil Dragon's nature can help to describe the sources of errors without complex psychological analyse. It can help to explain collective errors. The errors which weren't be made by each separate person alone. As result it can help to find a possibility to avoid such errors in the future.
Let's consider one example with the Dragon of The Deadline. A group of programmers is developing a software module. Each knows that the module must be redesigned. Nobody begin to do this. The Dragon of The Deadline repeats consequently, ``We haven't time for such big rework.'' As result the group is trying to solve problems with ``small changes''. Consequently the deadline is missed. The delay is much more than the time were needed to rewrite the module from the beginning.
You can analyse the cause of this error in terms of Dragons. You can ask group members what they mean about the Dragon of The Deadline. You can discuss with them, how this Dragon has forced the group to do wrong things. Consequently you can find together, how to protect the next project from the influence of this Dragon.
Of course you may ask them the direct questions too. For instance are they afraid to say management about unrealistic time planing? In this case the most likely answer will be ``Not''. Above all in case a manager is participating in the discussion.
The most interesting thing is that people don't lie. They are afraid, but they think that they aren't. Feelings are complex to analyse. At first if they are the own personal feelings. A human older 6 years can excellent lie himself.