Tips

1. Care about your craft
2. Think! about your work
3. You Have Agency
4. Provide Options, Don't Make Lame Excuses

Challenges

• How do you react when someone - such as a bank teller, an auto mechanic, or a clerk - comes to you with a lame excuse? What do you think of them and their company as a result?

At first I find this is okay, but if they don't know what to do after that then I feel like I have to step in (if I can) and help them out. That approach isn't very easy because people often don't like having someone that is outside their professional circle, or below their hierarchy, challenge them.

In any case, I can see that in those shoes, it's okay to briefly admit you may not know exactly what to do, but you should have any idea of what you're going to do next. Maybe you need some time to research the topic, or consult with experts. You need to demonstrate that you have a plan..

• When you find yourself saying, "I don't know," be sure to follow it up with "- but I'll find out." It's a great way to admit what you don't know, but then take responsibility like a pro.

Tips

1. Don't Live with Broken Windows

Challenges

• Help strengthen your team by surveying your project neighbourhood. Choose two or three broken windows and discuss with your colleagues what the problems are and what could be done to fix them.

We don't have a lot of strength in testing in certains parts of our code, and we've seen some things go sideways where production deployments have some bugs that might have been caught in a more elaborate test set up. We could probably come up with some sort of E2E testing for our CLI tools so we know they are working well.

Another is documentation. Sometimes the code itself is kind of light on comments, and things aren't necessarilly commented at the module or class level. Automatically linting might help a bit here (but might feel forced?), and generally advocating for increased clarity in code.

• Can you tell when a window first gets broken? What is your reaction? If it was the result of someone else's decision, or a management edict, what can you do about it?

Sometimes I think my own inner sense of what is right or wrong might throw up a concern when I get a gut feeling on something. I usually think.. "Oh. That's probably not good, or we should do something different".

When I decide what I want to do about it, I consider my position and my responsibilities - although generally I like to freely share my opinion knowing that they have no obligation to act on it. If there's room for change, then I would want to try to campaign for it.

1. Be a Catalyst for Change

Challenges

1. Remember the Big Picture