Expectations of professional software engineers
> 1. I can articulate precisely what problem I am trying to solve.<p>> 6. I have a Plan B in case my solution to my current problem doesn’t work.<p>> 9. I can clearly articulate unknowns and risks associated with my current problem.<p>These rules imply one of 3 things about the author:<p>* That author only encounters problems that have been fully solved before<p>* The manager gives zero weight or value to discovery<p>* The manager expects the whole project to have been fully specified before starting<p>Yikes, that's toxic! I think it's important that engineers have the mindset of understanding the problem, but that means that figuring out the problem is part of the work! Which then means that engineers should definitely have periods where they don't understand the problem, where they don't have a Plan B yet, and don't know what the unknowns are, because they can't know what the solution will be until they've started the work.