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Asking dumb questions #223

Open dreeves opened 1 year ago

dreeves commented 1 year ago 
### Desiderata
- [ ] Collect straw poll replies
- [ ] Have someone read a draft
- [ ] Keywords/tags
- [ ] Title image
- [ ] Link preview excerpt
- [ ] Publish
- [ ] Blog blurbs
- [ ] Waggledance
- [ ] Tweet
- [ ] Tip of the day

I have a project management (slash personal relationships?) insight that I'm going to tell you because it's 2am and I am in late-night dorm-room mode. I shall decide in the morning how embarrassed to be that this seems insightful to me. Ready?

Just listening patiently and asking the dumbest questions that any child could ask until the obvious thing to do is obvious is a surprising amount of work. It's extremely easy to be worse at project management (slash relationships?) than that, by just wandering off and not staying engaged.

Why that might be helpful:

  1. As a mantra: stay engaged!
  2. If you're having imposter syndrome or otherwise questioning your value, remind yourself that you're providing much more value than you'd think just by clearing that bar.

I've heard Patrick McKenzie at Stripe talk about the huge amount of value someone can add to a project by just repeatedly asking "is there any way we can ship this faster?" I didn't think he meant that very literally but maybe?

And now to get meta, I'm genuinely unsure I'm adding any value to the world with this so-called insight but history suggests that if I invite you all to reply with your favorite project management (slash personal relationship?) insight -- STRAW POLL! -- that I'll get some very good stuff, which I can compile and share with y'all next time.

Verbata: project management, software engineering philosophy,

dreeves commented 1 year ago

Project management insights from the beemail replies [beemailed again on 2022-12-05]