This is why software craftsmanship is rarely recognized. When you build with craftsmanship so features are easy and fast to add on top of what you built because you thoughtfully the most likely ramifications of the current requirements within reason, operational excellence is easy to accomplish because you sat down with front line operators and took the time to understand their incentives and daily operations pain points from a first-person perspective, and so on, you aren’t the one who is recognized with the commensurate credit, those who benefit from your work in the future are the ones who grab the limelight as if they did your work, unless the leadership are themselves highly technical (and many times, not even then). Incentives currently in most of my clients are mostly aligned to the fulfillment of keywords and not an outcome.
“Produce a procedure documentation” gets keyword fulfilled into “here is a document with some steps”, instead of “here is a procedure we wrote, used spelling and grammar checker upon [I’m still shocked so few take the few seconds to correct as they go], run through an automated editor, then iterated through random people from the user population until someone who never saw it before accomplishes the procedure without assistance”.
Some startups succeed because they’re forced into conscientiously thinking through these ramifications in just the right contexts because they’re so close to the coal face. It is also possible to overdo this in the wrong context and end up bikeshedding.
“Produce a procedure documentation” gets keyword fulfilled into “here is a document with some steps”, instead of “here is a procedure we wrote, used spelling and grammar checker upon [I’m still shocked so few take the few seconds to correct as they go], run through an automated editor, then iterated through random people from the user population until someone who never saw it before accomplishes the procedure without assistance”.
Some startups succeed because they’re forced into conscientiously thinking through these ramifications in just the right contexts because they’re so close to the coal face. It is also possible to overdo this in the wrong context and end up bikeshedding.