Knowledge gives us options

Yesterday I was working on building a simple survey website. And I found that I'd got stuck when trying to show a "Strongly Disagree through to Strong Agree" style question on a small mobile screen.

While the style of question was exactly what I wanted for the survey, it was proving to be a real struggle to make it firstly fit the small mobile screen and secondly to look good.

After about an hour struggling with the problem, I chose to switch to a technique that I'd learnt over lockdown. And almost straight away everything started to fall into place.

This new technique unlocked a new option for me. And option that allowed me to progress past a tricky problem.

While this was a perfect example of how Software Development is as much problem solving as anything else, the moral of this story was having that extra knowledge was the solution.

The tried and tested techniques that I've been using for years si mply hadn't been producing the results I needed.

The new technique did.

This new technique - this new knowledge - provided me with alternative options beyond what I'd been using for years.

And this is why learning is so important.

Learning enables us to gain more knowledge. More knowledge gives us more options. More options gives us more flexibility when we need them.

This is why I promote an experimental mindset in our work. This is why I promote a learning culture for organisations.

Without learning, we aren't gaining knowledge, we aren't gaining options, we lose any flexibility.

Instead we have to rely on HiPPO (Highest Paid Person's Opinion) - and we lose any form of diversity in our decision making.

We find ourselves with little in the way of options. Often we find ourselves heading down a dead-end paths because the HiPPO doesn't want to lose face for their earlier opinions - if anything we find them doubling down on what seems to be losing bet.

Knowledge is critical to us as individuals, our teams and our organisations. Without it we get trapped in the dead-end path because we have no other option.

Continuing to look at Professionalism

In this week's podcast episode I continue looking at Professionalism within Software Development through the lens of the Programmer's Oath by Uncle Bob Martin.

In the episode, I take a look at the first Oath:

I Promise that, to the best of my ability and judgement:

I will not produce harmful code.

Listen here

About the author:

Mark Taylor is an experience IT Consultant passionate about helping his clients get better ROI from their Software Development.

He has over 20 years Software Development experience - over 15 of those leading teams. He has experience in a wide variety of technologies and holds certification in Microsoft Development and Scrum.

He operates through Red Folder Consultancy Ltd.