Ownership

Have you seen someone being in the flow? When the world around them is irrelevant, they are so focused and productive, you can’t even imagine how they do what they do.

When I figured out my calling in life around 7 years old, it was instinctive. I got a programming text book and the day disappeared like no other. Typing away the Basic commands, seeing first hand the results. Not even realizing, I was translating a comic book into a text adventure game. Then added my directions into it. Days passed with fun, of course had no idea at the time, it was my flow state.

Chasing that flow state, that feeling again and again, led me through my life. Video games, playing and coding them, not yielding outcome. However one day got a job, creating user interfaces for administrative business apps I had no idea about. And I experienced the flow again.

One of the main criteria I could get to my flow was ownership.

I owned the problem, it was me who wanted to make something, and with software, as close to literally as it can be, it is made out of thin air.

I believe every engineer felt that feeling at least one point in his/her life. It gives a perseverance not many other career requires to keep at it for years on end. There is no shortcut to success, just grinding of fundamentals, algorithms, architectures, experience.

At work, you miss this feeling. Or just hard to achieve. You wish for responsibility. To be involved with important architecture or tech decisions. To own the part you work on. Isn’t it?

At work, we have to create something valuable. Valuable for business, something we did not aim to while we practiced our craft for half a lifetime. So connecting to it is harder.

Take the time and talk with your product people, talk with your customers! My best epiphanies came when I could directly talk with my end users! Oh that button never worked and it is 5 minutes fixing, why didn’t you say so earlier? I am glad I made your day 10% easier!

You are the one keeping your engineers away from the users? They can’t talk to them, they are not trained, or it is a waste of time.

You can train them.

Or just bring them along when you do talk to your users!

Or join in to user interviews.

Or just watch and see how your users gets through their a day with the feature you painstakenly developed over months!

Feedback, insights and after all, lifelong motivation by seeing your work matters, is never a waste of time!

How do you achieve ownership?