This is a really great resource thank you! Honestly time to value is extremely efficient with you site so also definitely something we will explore thank you for sharing.
This Medium article offers a quick 2-minute exploration of AI's impact on the future and aims to ignite a discussion. How do you see AI shaping the future of work—enhancing jobs or replacing them? What are your thoughts on AI's effects on human cognition: Does it boost your ability to learn and process information, or does it make you less critical and more dependent? What's your overall vision for AI's role in our future?"
This captures the essence of the discussion I’m aiming to foster. I realize that labeling tasks as “trivial” might undermine their perceived importance, as highlighted by the examples in my title and the primary discussion here. However, my goal is to spark a conversation about those simple, mundane, or “trivial” tasks that are crucial to your workflow, yet, in an ideal scenario(perfect information/100% aligned team), you’d prefer to allocate your efforts and time elsewhere. Additionally, I recognize that describing these tasks as both trivial and essential might seem contradictory, creating a bit of an oxymoron.
Your viewpoint is 100% understandable and agreeable. I also don’t consider the tasks you mentioned as trivial. However, for the sake of discussion and my own learning, do you view these tasks as directly critical to adding value as a programmer? Or do you see them as essential for establishing alignment, which, in turn, facilitates more efficient value creation? Personally, I believe the examples you mentioned are important but it’s hard for me to value the plan over the execution in such a rapidly adapting ecosystem. Not to tangent but I believe in the words of Mike Tyson everyone has a plan until you get punched in the mouth. We can plan, research and document but if the insight is found in the execution shouldn’t bottom line by trying to ship and iterate. My main point is objectives can often be succinctly summarized,and while the task you mentioned are important I think the weight we put to them discounts the value of just shipping. Our differing views might also stem from our backgrounds—I’m assuming (please correct me if I’m wrong) that you have more experience with larger development teams.
I agree with pretty much everything you’ve said. However, do you think that within most organizations there are workflows that could be made more efficient? That’s where I find some disagreement with your last point. By removing what’s seen as trivial, the focus shifts more towards the overarching goal of adding value, which, for most programmers, is often about shipping or refactoring code.
I certainly didn’t intend to undervalue the importance of strong and clear communication, which is undeniably crucial for the success of any team. However, my comment was aimed more at questioning the balance between the creation of documentation/meetings and the direct development work that contributes to shipping value.
From my experience, especially within the startup ecosystem, there’s a tendency to prioritize rapid development and iteration over extensive documentation and lengthy meetings. This approach is often rewarded in such environments because it aligns closely with the need to move quickly and adapt to market demands. In my view, a piece of well-written, efficient code that directly contributes to a feature or product often delivers more immediate value than the documentation that accompanies it. This perspective isn’t to say documentation isn’t necessary, but rather that its depth and scope should be carefully weighed against the urgency of delivering functional, value-adding features to the market.
Of course, this balance shifts as teams and projects scale. Larger teams and more complex projects require more structured communication and documentation to maintain coherence and alignment. The challenge, as I see it, is finding the right balance that allows us to remain agile and innovative without losing the thread of effective communication and documentation.
In essence, I believe in the importance of both coding and communication tasks. My aim is to spark a discussion on how we can better align our efforts to ensure that we’re not only creating value through our direct development work but also supporting that work with the necessary documentation and meetings in the most efficient way possible. How can we optimize our approach to these essential tasks to support our main goal of shipping value, especially in fast-paced environments?
I definitely can see the point you are drawing at here, but In cases of code review, testing notes, PR comments - which typically is the bulk of the work in tickets for programmers (-mind you if your team has a PM) this is just not feasible. lol :)
Yeah I can definitely resonate with that, but a-lot of the early insight and best practices I gained early on in my career were established doing code reviews. So I generally see them as a positive.
User stories/Tickets has been a common theme, Im curious if this work is exclusive to specific set of actions or if you are constantly are having to respond with different sets of data like specific testing notes, PR comments, etc. ?
I don't really have a true definition of great in this context, especially since it seems to require a comparison to others or adherence to someones criteria for achievement.
By "great" I really meant reaching a point you've surpassed a threshold you previously thought was your limit. Though I guess also trying to highlight concepts or ideas that, based on peoples personal experience made them feel distinguished from others.
Also was sorta curious to hear from those with the confidence to be attacked online for calling themselves some arbitrary level of skill("Great") felt got them to that point.
Well there are general studies and cases to support this -- example: Blackwell, L. S., Trzesniewski, K. H., & Dweck, C. S. (2007). Implicit theories of intelligence predict achievement across an adolescent transition: A longitudinal study and an intervention.
Though I anticipate this is not really what you are drawing at here.
While I can definitely agree that inherent talents or traits may put an individual ahead of others. I just dont see the scenario where talent beats hard work. Now dont get me wrong Im not trying to imply that a turtle can train to outrun a cheetah, but rather that in the realm of intellectual pursuit, I believe the landscape is significantly more malleable. To me, asserting that talent or intelligence is fixed would imply that knowledge and understanding are also static. Yet our capacity to think, interpret, understand and extrapolate is ever evolving. So I still feel the growth mindset is more closer to the "truth" in the sense that novel thinking and innovation can expand intelligence. Im not looking to deny the existence of innate capabilities but rather draw some emphasis to the potential of persistence and effort in learning.
I guess I tend to lean towards the growth mindset here. In my personal view and it may just be my own naivety. I do feel general intelligence or in this specific case programming capability can be developed to any level through sheer work and dedication. Not to fall into the first group of people you describe though I feel more of the world's John Carmacks are created through an almost unnatural obsession with failure and the confidence to push forward, rather than being naturally gifted or accustomed to success coming easily to them.
Do you have any thoughts on what made that one year special? Really with this question I am wondering if this was early on in your learning process? I think a lot of what is frustrating for me at this point, is realizing that a lot of the initial joy I got in learning was almost in a ignorance is bliss phase. Not knowing or even caring to understand best practices or reading/learning documentation. I think back to one of the most fun moments I had early on just being excited and happy I was able to follow a youtube video to create a simple turn based monster vs human game and actually getting it running. Im way past this as far a knowledge base, experience and capability now but am struggling to get that same feeling in new projects.