Courage for 2024

Technology is great. Methodology is great. But what drives us, what keeps us moving forward day after day, what helps us bounce back after a setback—those are our values. You know better than I do what’s best for you and your company, but I can confidently point to our values as the foundation for these New Year’s resolutions.

And among all these values, courage comes to mind.

Courage is a value whose importance the Scrum Guide rightly emphasizes: “the courage to do what’s right, to work on difficult problems,” it states. Tackle your customers’ real problems, and when writing code, don’t take shortcuts. Keep your technical debt under control: only take on debt as a last resort, and when you do, negotiate a repayment schedule with the business side. Code is a company asset—sometimes its most valuable one. It’s up to you to help them understand that.

Have the courage to aim high. No, “perfection” is not a dirty word. Perfection is an ideal to strive for—it’s up to us to restore its reputation. To abandon the idea of perfection is to abandon the very idea of improvement. Continuous improvement is the key: build on every small victory and persevere. Have the courage to keep getting back to work, the courage to admit that you don’t know, that you were wrong, and the courage to always move forward.

Listen to your sense of dissatisfaction and take action. Are your estimates always off and not helping you? Look for the root causes (likely parmi celles-ci) and experiment to confirm or refute your hypotheses. Have the courage to doubt and to question habits.

On the other hand, don’t do things “just because you have to,” or because it’s “the” right way to do it. The result is what matters, and there’s rarely just one way to do things. Practice Test-Driven Development if and when it adds value. If it isn’t useful to anyone—neither today nor tomorrow—don’t do it, and look for other tools. Do what’s best for you, your software, and your team.

So ask yourself the right questions: How can I ensure that new developments don’t introduce regressions? How can I get that answer quickly and with a high degree of confidence? Yes, there are better ways than manual testing—that’s a good starting point for your research 😊

In addition to a critical mind, you’ll need pragmatism. And the source of all pragmatism in computer science is a deep understanding of the business. When you don’t know how to do something, you have to ask yourself why you’re doing it—and that’s precisely what the business tells you. It’s the business that reveals the constraints at play, the possible trade-offs, and what cannot be compromised.

Finally, have the courage to stand by your ideas—the courage to bring about change step by step within your organization. Have the courage to walk away, if necessary. Have the courage to ask for help to bring about change. The strongest individuals and the most mature organizations are, in my experience, those who know how to ask for help.

So, Happy New Year, stay courageous, and happy coding!