Teams are usually so overwhelmed chasing their (never-ending) priorities, OKRs, goals, numbers, product releases etc., that when things start to slow down, and people are wondering, “Okay, what am I onto, today?” the little things are being taken care of. Sometimes, with a big, unseen impact.
I’ve witnessed software engineers having the slack to take care of a slow test. Or automate a few things here and there. Or take the time to really think or prototype the foundational work of an upcoming project. Not by assignment, but because they care, or even better… had enough.
And this work, can sometimes have a considerable impact on more people, unlocking potential. Imagine how running a test suite or deploying to production a few minutes faster, could have a cumulative productivity effect to tens or hundreds of engineers, working on the same codebase every day.
How automating the generation of a report, or a process, could save hours of manual work being spent every day. Those little things that are never prioritized because they do not produce immediate customer or sales value.
There are even agile development frameworks, like Shape Up, that incorporate ideas like this into their core. 2 cool-down weeks for every 6 weeks of hard work. Pretty fair, right?
These things are rarely a priority and it might be ok. But from time to time, it’s important to give people a break and let them surprise you by their magic.
I’ve witnessed software engineers having the slack to take care of a slow test. Or automate a few things here and there. Or take the time to really think or prototype the foundational work of an upcoming project. Not by assignment, but because they care, or even better… had enough.
And this work, can sometimes have a considerable impact on more people, unlocking potential. Imagine how running a test suite or deploying to production a few minutes faster, could have a cumulative productivity effect to tens or hundreds of engineers, working on the same codebase every day.
How automating the generation of a report, or a process, could save hours of manual work being spent every day. Those little things that are never prioritized because they do not produce immediate customer or sales value.
There are even agile development frameworks, like Shape Up, that incorporate ideas like this into their core. 2 cool-down weeks for every 6 weeks of hard work. Pretty fair, right?
These things are rarely a priority and it might be ok. But from time to time, it’s important to give people a break and let them surprise you by their magic.