We own everything in our world #
Once people stop making excuses, stop blaming others, and take ownership of everything in their lives, they are compelled to take action to solve their problems.
Extreme Ownership
As an engineer, we pick up a task and see it to completion. Completion doesn’t mean that you implement what you were asked to do and call it a day. It means things like the following and a lot more.
- You take into account the areas of the application it will impact.
- You determine in what scenarios the particular feature can fail or otherwise cause the system to misbehave.
- You figure out and document the steps required to deploy it in production.
- You write automated tests for that feature.
- You write any upgrade paths required to support that feature.
- Ultimately, and most importantly, you determine if this feature is fulfilling the customer’s problem as far as you can tell.
In a nutshell, you own the feature. You are obligated to share suggestions on how to improve it.
You’re not alone #
Taking ownership doesn’t mean you’re alone. You realize when it is time to research options yourself and when it is time to ask your team for help, and you do it. It doesn’t mean you know everything. It means you know what you know and you know what you don’t. And you ask for help. It also means that you speak up when you see something that affects your system or your team. We’re in this together; all of us, and remaining quiet is doing a disservice.