Mission Control

So we have this blog, Mission Control. But we have no clearly defined mission, I guess. Let’s fix it.

I was recently asked about our Mission Statement, and even though I believe those are useless, it made me start thinking. And I figured I need to pull the series of posts about our mission. Just so to make sure everyone is on the same page. It is the first priority for a manager to make sure that no ambiguities squeezed in. So let’s get started.

Archimedes Lever/Wikipedia

Part 1: Make it useful

I have (successfully) delivered dozens of projects in my career. Actually, it is over 100, perhaps. Thing is, that out of them, I vividly remember about 10. That’s the point. Yep, only 10%.

I do not mean that the projects were not worth remembering, or that we did not do anything cool on it. I trust we did. Of course, technology evolves and these days what we done 8-10 years ago many would find not that cool. But this will always be the case with technologies…

Yes, for the matter of fact, in great deal of these projects I participated in senior roles and did not dive deep into details. But that does not make any difference for the remembering things.

What does matter is the fact, that on all projects that I do remember, I had witnessed the great follow-up on after-launch.

Simply saying, I saw people making use of the software that we developed. Either it was big-ass payment app that processed mlns of dollars, or it was the smaller simulation program that helped with cancer fighting in the UK, or completely tiny mobile app for the advertising game. So, size isn’t relevant. Technology isn’t that relevant (especially that it changes so fast). In all the cases, I knew that what we just did this was important cause it was useful for people.

Again, I am not saying that the rest of the projects that I do not remember that vividly were useless. I believe, most of them were pretty useful. It is just that we as developers did not get to have any feedback after delivery. We aim to change that.

So here comes the first point for the mission statement:

We are here to make useful applications that people will remember.

It’s ok that not all of the products last as long as the Ford Mustang on the picture above. Reality changes and we may not all get lucky to develop such masterpieces. It should be useful for the time being. And of course, we try to develop timeless pieces of software…. But that’s the point of the next post. Stay tuned. And pls, participate in discussion in comments.