Why I Became an Exceptional Engineer℠ — and Accelerated My Career
A few years ago, I was running a watermelon project.
The status reported to management was green — on time. But our work was taking longer than expected and requirements were constantly changing. Beneath the watermelon rind, our project status quickly turned bright red.
To make up for it, we worked lots of overtime. We cut design corners because “we’ll fix it later — we don’t have time right now.” We played hero every time we fixed a critical defect (that could have been prevented with a more thorough design).
We got lucky. We eventually delivered the project just hours before the deadline. Then we spent the next 6 months fixing it.
This experience was the lowest point of my career.
I had just become a mom, trying to tell myself I could have it all: kids and career. But this experience told me that I wouldn’t be good enough unless I was willing to sacrifice so much of my time, myself, and my family for my job.
Software engineering has a bad reputation for burnout, and that isn’t changing, right? I was seriously thinking about quitting my career.
Seeking a Leadership Mentor
“If you want to become an expert, hire a teacher.” — Anonymous
Shortly after this experience, I met Alan Willett.
At the time, Alan was in the middle of creating his concept of the Exceptional Engineer℠, one who can confidently:
- Deliver projects faster using Alan’s Laws of Speed
- Make commitments they keep (or beat)
- For a project in crisis, tell stakeholders the hard truth (“it’s late!”) and still have great relationships with them
- Turn that project in crisis around
- Change an organization’s engineering culture to approach projects more efficiently, leading to greater success
These skills were extremely relevant to the watermelon project I had just escaped.
If I wanted to thrive in my career, this is who I needed to become. I became Alan’s first student for this new curriculum.
Stepping Beyond the “Good” Engineer
Before diving into exactly how the Exceptional Engineer fulfills those lofty bullet points above, let’s first talk about the good engineer.
I used to be one. If I was put onto a watermelon project, I would quickly ramp up, work hard to get my part done, put in extra hours, and fix any critical defects.
My mantra was, “I’ll just work harder.” (Even at a high personal cost.)
But this is usually not the answer because projects are often very behind.
Working harder should only be the answer when:
- You know by how much a project is behind
- You have data to prove the project timeline is recoverable with more effort
- You choose that path
Working harder with no evidence other than “hoping it will fix the project” is a recipe for burnout, suffering, and perhaps disdain for the profession. That’s what I used to do.
The Exceptional Engineer’s Kiwi Project
In contrast to the watermelon project, a kiwi project is green all the way to its core. That means this project is being developed in the fastest, most efficient way possible. Its time-to-value ratio is excellent.
Additionally, the kiwi project is on-time and high quality — because fixing defects, especially in the testing stage, is slow.
Here is what I have learned in the Exceptional Engineer course about leading kiwi projects:
1) How to make commitments teams can keep or beat
The key ingredients to a sound project commitment are:
- Detailed estimates of the work to be done
- The time available to do the work
- Room for uncertainty or change
- Not worrying too much about accuracy — some estimates will be higher and some lower. They will average out in the end.
Working with Alan, our team developed 3 levels of planning, depending on project criticality: back of the envelope, roughly right, and high confidence.
But a project commitment isn’t useful unless project status is tracked! Thus, we have also learned how to answer these questions at every stage of project development:
- Is the project ahead or behind schedule?
- By how much?
- Why?
2) How to plan for a high-quality product
According to the Lead with Speed “Immutable Law of Speed #4”:
The higher the cost of rework, the slower you are going.
This is how our team minimizes rework:
- We thoroughly design our software — we know that design deficiencies are some of the most expensive to improve later
- We understand that it is much faster to catch defects during review phases, such as requirements inspections, design reviews, and code reviews
- We maintain checklists that help us catch the maximum number of defects in the minimum time
- We track our quality data, and implement ideas to improve it over time
3) How to be a “force multiplier”
A force multiplier is one who not only accelerates their personal software development process, but also that of their team and even their entire organization.
The force multiplier has mastered:
- Having a relentless focus on value to the customer
- Creating a culture of acceleration — from setting high expectations to helping teams remove what’s blocking them
- Expanding their Exceptional Engineer skills to the team
- Rewarding others for their exceptional work
- Taking personal ownership of the team’s and organization’s outcomes
Even just a few force multipliers can make a massive difference in a company’s culture and speed to value.
Being Exceptional is Scary
As I have become an Exceptional Engineer, I’ve learned to overcome some substantial fears. For example, I feared:
- My data was wrong — I miscalculated the project status, its estimated completion, or its quality profile.
- Others would be disappointed in me — I wasn’t able to rise to others’ expectations (usually because the facts say a project will take longer than desired).
- Is the problem actually with me? Could a different engineer get it done faster & higher quality than me?
My strategy to overcome these has been practice.
By taking the Exceptional Engineer course, I have learned to be confident in my data and my engineering abilities. I have had many opportunities to estimate projects small and big (even multi-year!), compare estimates versus actuals, improve my personal defect injection rate, and deliver the hard truth to stakeholders multiple times with success.
Being Exceptional is Worth It
This is how I’ve accelerated my career:
- I’ve won multiple awards given by peers, managers, even the CEO
- I’ve been challenged with harder, more interesting projects
- I’ve started using my projects to build my skills
- I’ve climbed the career ladder faster than I ever imagined
- I take much more joy in work, and have less stress
But the most rewarding has been witnessing the speed-to-value acceleration among my peers and within my organization. It feels incredible when we all win together.
You Can Do This, Too!
Being an engineer is fantastic when you have a great working environment.
I’ve learned that it’s our responsibility to make our work environments great.
I give you that challenge.
References
This article is based on the presentation: The Exceptional Engineer℠: Engineers that Drive Culture Change from Within given by Alan Willett and Emilia Vanderwerf at the Software Excellence Alliance in November of 2020. See it below:
The terms “watermelon project” and “kiwi project” are originally from Alan Willett’s book Lead with Speed.
