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I read the book Maverick by Ricardo Semler and learnt that every one wants to do well by themselves instead of a supervisor telling them what to do and watching them closely. It was a very new concept, though I was not able to influence my managers, I was able to follow this for people whom I had to lead. The results are often that people end up punching above their weight most of the times, people who try to game are often exposed within a few weeks and they themselves are not able to continue to work with our teams. I also stumbled on his second book The seven day weekend, which was more thought provoking on how to approach life in general and not to differentiate work and life as two different identities.

While I was in college, I learnt a lot and read a lot of books even though I spent a good deal of time commuting and playing. When I moved to be a full time worker, I found that my time for reading and learning quickly dried away. My managers insisted that I spend 12 hours a day, 6 days a week in order for me to meet expectations. What I observed was that most of the work got done within a heads down time of 3-4 hours. If I was stuck, no matter how hard I tried, I could not make headway until I got some focus time away or sleep. My attention span also varied throughout the day and throughout the week.

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In the course of time over a few work years, I also forgot about leisure reading, arts/crafts and exercise/sports. This led to only two outlets, food and media. No matter how hard I tried, I was always finding excuses to eat out and binge watch. One fine day, I got to work with a new team. The rule of the team was, we stop working by 6 and go out to play. This was different from what I was used to before, it worked wonders because it forced me to come out of the work mode and unwind and find friends in a non eating/drinking setup. The self formed XP team ensured that the peak productivity window as a team is aligned for team work and the rest individual contribution can come at a different pace.

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This blended work/life mode was unnerving as there was a feeling that I was not doing enough. At the end of a release we retrospected along with the client on how did we do? Our client said a similar complexity and scope that was delivered by 40 people from another team, this team had done it with just 11 people. As I grew in career, non linear working mode was the norm. I always carried a pen and paper with me, ideas struck me when I least expected, solutions appeared out of nowhere while waiting at traffic lights, cooking, gardening, having coffee….

My experience was also validated when I read the book The pragmatic programmer where the author talks about linear mode and random mode in one of the chapters. Don’t listen to ideas like 996 working style and promise of progress that comes with it, they are not fit for collective knowledge work. It also drains the mind and the body, because of the constant war mode that an individual will live in. As I read in the books and experienced, I have not been able to separate out my life and work as two separate jobs, it is what I am. So instead of talking about balancing two different jobs, I look to plan my days as a whole.

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A lot of people irrespective of their role at work, be it devs, managers, executives or architects often misunderstand what is to be called as tech debt and end up classifying cruft as tech debt. Management loves the concept of debt, often when it is easily available. The debt metaphor means, management can borrow from the future at cheaper interest rates and repay easily when they are able to multiply their capital acquired through debt. Debt is intentional, needs to be repaid, has to help you achieve more than you will repay in interest.

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What people talk about technical debt in the day to day work is not tech debt but cruft. None of that is intentional, it is purely poor practices, bad engineering and accidental. If we want to take an analogy to explain the difference between the two- a family of five people, parents with three kids is having a hatchback.They find it hard to go on their vacation trips and rely on rental vans. Most of the days mixing use of public transport and sharing the car helps them gets through the day. They keep considering about either buying another car or upgrading this one to a larger one but put it aside due to financial constraints. This scenario is what we call as tech debt. What is cruft then? If the same family who has a hatch back, never cleans the car, neither changes oil, does not fix dents and scratches which cause metal rot over time is cruft. Eventually even the small car they have will become unusable.

Tech debt has a benefit, it is always helpful until you hit the next magnitude problem while cruft is always damaging and drain on time and energy. You neither plan nor ask for permission to avoid or clean up cruft. It should be part of your every day job to leave the code in which you live in a clean and well tested state. If you have to keep defending cruft in the name of tech debt, you are in the wrong place.

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In a math class, a professor asked this question – Imagine you in the middle of an ocean and have a boat, you travel 500 km north, turn 90 degrees, go 500 km, then turn 90 degrees, go another 500 km, again turn 90 degrees, go another 500 km, where will you be. Immediately so many hands went up to answer the question that is too easy, but the professor identified a pupil thinking deeply but who did not raise hands. When asked why was the pupil not raising hands, the answer was – “I don’t know how to calculate”. The entire class left out a loud laughter, the professor waited patiently for the laughter to die down and asked the pupil to explain the thoughts on the board. The pupil explained that earth is curved so travelling huge distances and turning 90 degrees four times will not take you back to the same location but some kilometres short, but is not aware of how to calculate the exact distance away from the starting point. The professor explained to the class that the pupil is in right direction, this is non Euclidean geometry, how overconfidence blinds people into stagnating at a level.

A confident person taking a gorilla head on

The workplace is no different, but there are no professors to validate confidence vs competence. I was misled a few times and made mistakes in staffing, until I found a way to interview people and identify the indicators for competence. Dunning-Kruger effect explains that most of us will always pitch on better-than-average rating if we are asked to evaluate ourselves. The false confidence that it imparts to below average people and the hesitation it imparts on above average people will be presented and read as an indicator for competence.

Some indicators that helped identify competence and weed out false confidence

  • Humility – This is one of the biggest indicators for me, people who are humbled by experiences have learnt a lot.
  • Grit, Discipline, System – People who have a systems way of working, hanging out on to habits/practices/processes that are simple, yet effective and have a long term impact.
  • Team player – Very difficult to find out in first meetings, some points include openness to share knowledge, ability to receive feedback, challenge ideas but not the person etc.

Falsely confident people will walk in circles when lost, but will give the illusion of progress and that comfort feel of not stuck in a place. Competent people may need the – observe, orient, decide and act loop to work before they can act but will sure help progress.