Observing

Athletes watch other athletes perform. Pick a football player. There’s close to a 100% chance that they watch other players playing. This is true ranging from your Sunday League warrior, to your Ronaldo or Messi.

There’s a point where observing an activity stops to make sense. Instead the focus is shifted to the outcome, not the process. One can appreciate a building, a bridge, or some other structure. But miss the process that led to it. The same happens with coding. One can review a Pull Request, but the thought process is often missed. It’s the equivalent of a football player looking at the stats of a match, but missing the actual game.

That’s something that I look for with high performing engineers. As a manager, I am of course pleased with their impact - for the business and within the team. Yet, my selfish desire is to be intimate with how their mind works.