I remember my first meeting at my first job. I got there early with a fresh empty notebook and a couple good pens. This was before everyone had laptops and we couldn’t even imagine tablets. I carefully listened, dutifully took notes, and asked questions.
I took my notes back to my cubicle next to the storage shelves and started to bang out a design. I came up with some code and told my boss I was just about done with so simple a task. I didn’t understand why they gave me so much time on the schedule.
Then, came some pretty hard lessons. I didn’t ask the right questions and so misunderstood the requirement. Little did I know of the flaws in my design and code. I didn’t see the changes that were going to come. I learned some lessons from that task, that project, and many many more projects to come.
Over the years since, I’ve learned the hard way what questions to ask. I learned the hard way where to design for change, and where to design for simplicity.
Hopefully, I’ll share some of those lessons here. Lessons I learned while working in the trenches…figuratively and on Navy ships at sea during exercises…literally.