Good post. I deal with this a lot in small startups. The hidden work is always lurking behind the product/functional work, and the issue is that the business has no appreciation of the cost of the work until it becomes an obstacle. I try to make that work transparent by expressing it as part of estimations (and illustrating the work in Jira etc etc) but it is still a challenge to express that "necessary evil" as a cost attached to decision making.
A tangible example is security and compliance. It is commonly regarded as nearly-free or a "process thing" when the reality is that there are both and explicit (e.g. tooling) costs and implicit (people/process) costs. Yet by the time those costs are factored into planning, strategic decisions are already made.
Have you observed this, and how have you addressed it in your experience?
I love the pivot from looking at engineering teams to recognising the invisible efforts going on in other functions and even our personal lives. Notice others, really notice others, be grateful and give them praise and recognition for all the essential invisible work they do.
I totally agree. Another area of invisible work is IT work. It takes a lot of effort to keep all your internal hardware and systems up and running. And usually you only interact with people when they are upset and things are not working.
Good post. I deal with this a lot in small startups. The hidden work is always lurking behind the product/functional work, and the issue is that the business has no appreciation of the cost of the work until it becomes an obstacle. I try to make that work transparent by expressing it as part of estimations (and illustrating the work in Jira etc etc) but it is still a challenge to express that "necessary evil" as a cost attached to decision making.
A tangible example is security and compliance. It is commonly regarded as nearly-free or a "process thing" when the reality is that there are both and explicit (e.g. tooling) costs and implicit (people/process) costs. Yet by the time those costs are factored into planning, strategic decisions are already made.
Have you observed this, and how have you addressed it in your experience?
I love the pivot from looking at engineering teams to recognising the invisible efforts going on in other functions and even our personal lives. Notice others, really notice others, be grateful and give them praise and recognition for all the essential invisible work they do.
I totally agree. Another area of invisible work is IT work. It takes a lot of effort to keep all your internal hardware and systems up and running. And usually you only interact with people when they are upset and things are not working.