Although things started to slow down as the requirements came in, the team expanded, and more people (aka management) got involved — we kept up great momentum for a long time. More and more people were using our deployment for Real Business Work™ which was great, but also kinda scary since people were worried about losing data and peeved by downtime. Iterations went by and the UI got more refined as the designers cranked out their magic and features were tweaked. We even removed some features that were too complex (but we probably should have simplified even more).
But things really started to slow down when managers started mentioning the devilish S-word… Ship. This rubber hit the road we had to ensure our i’s were dotted and t’s were crossed so we didn’t shoot ourselves in the foot (no more idioms I swear!). Maybe those were details we actually forgot or “chose” to forget, but either way they needed fixing real soon now.
By now I had earned more respect and responsibility on the team. Some of it was earned through hard work, some if it was being in the right place at the right time (I got the chance to try and fill in the shoes of a great senior developer we lost), and some of it was from just being a bold junior developer. But anyway… I had gotten to the point where I was doing my normal developer “day job”, trying to lead a small team, and help out and do other various work here that was needed and was not getting done.
This is where things started to get more complicated.
One thing that sticks out (since it frustrated me to no end) was getting lured into to owning some part of the project. It starts out by hearing that there is some new or unforeseen feature or problem needs work. All developers are already fully assigned, but it has to get done. Next, someone with a bit initiative (aka guilty sucker) steps up and says, “That isn’t hard to implement. I can code it up.”
I have now since learned where that leads. By volunteering to do extra work you inevitably end up owning this work. In other words, you are on the hook to fix, support, and document the things you were being nice for doing in the first place! The funny thing is that no body ever asked you. The just assumed since you’ve already started it, you might as well do it all.