Perspective
Filed under: Crazy, Development, End User, HR, Management, Small Company
This post started out as a discussion on the common enemy, Ted. Ted is the guy who everyone hates in the office and wonders why he is still there (If Ted is your CEO, it is time to look for a new job). As I thought about the Teds of the world, the theme of perspective kept coming up.
One of my Teds would constantly distract us from our work, arguing the peculiar aspects of a specification interpretation. We had no problems discussing these issues in six months, but while we were trying to fix data corruption bugs, a bit of perspective was required. I had to constantly recalibrate him. One incident occurred during crunch time in the early versions of the product. “Damn it Ted, it doesn’t matter how we interpret this esoteric section of the spec because it is meaningless until our users can load the work they just saved! We have been working crazy hours for the past weeks trying to fix the load bug so that there would be a company in six months.”
It is important when you are deep inside a complex issue, that you do not lose perspective. Many good engineers have lost hours on less important issues trying to work them out to completion. Always remember that It is important to keep the end user user in mind, asking yourself if this is the best way to move the product forward for them.
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