Satisfaction
As some of you may know, I’m building a boat in my brother’s garage. We had a big milestone the other day: we finished painting the bottom and rolled the boat over to finish the topsides. From a distance it looks great!
Up close is another story though. Up close you can find ripples in the paint from where the fiberglass wasn’t sufficiently well sanded. There are other places where you can see fine lines in the paint due to underlying patterns in the filler compound. Add to that the fact that the paint has rough areas where the roller left a pattern. And don’t even get me started about that flat spot.
I see all of these imperfections and more. It’s pretty rough. —– I’ve worked with teams like that too. From a distance, everything looks great. You are hitting your milestones and everyone is pleased.
But get close and you find all sorts of flaws. They’re not using story points. They won’t keep their burn down chart up to date. They don’t even know what an acceptance test is. They’re pretty rough. Maybe we should just keep them in the garage… —– But around this time, along comes my brother. He takes one look at the boat and says, “Damn! That’s beautiful!” So I point out a flaw. He waves it off and says, “The only boat without scrapes and dents is in the showroom. This boat is going to sail!” Not to be dissuaded, I point out another flaw. He looks at me and says, “Will it float?” My answer, “Yes.” “OK then. Let’s get this thing in the water.”
And so we go back to work, and somehow it is OK. I stop worrying and focus on what remains to be done. —– Sometimes someone visits the office. Someone I really respect and admire. I show them around and they say, “Wow, what a great team!” So I walk them over to the story board and point out that it’s out of date. They look at me and say, “That’s cool. Not many people even use physical dashboards.” I tell them that the team doesn’t use story points. They look at me and say, “Does the team deliver?” My answer, “Yes.” “OK then. Let’s sling some code.” —– And so I’m reminded not to be such a damn perfectionist. Love your boat. Love your team.