“This connects to that and then I think it does something over here, or something else does something, but then there is another system that works here…” If that’s the introduction to what you’re working on, get ready for two things to happen; Pad your estimates into next week because you will spend more time working with people to figure out what is going on rather than actually working on the problem. Change what you…
You don’t need to defend your effort to anyone else. The results might not always be there, but those are your results. No one else’s. Your effort is your own. You’ll know when it’s not enough and you’ll get to be the judge when it isn’t. Everyone else is just noise.
Big deadlines, and big deliveries, no matter the level of planning you do, will always require some extra effort. There is no way around it, irrespective of the field you are in, that extra push always needs to happen. You hope for it to be a week, but then a week turns to 2 and then into a month. This is where your team needs your leadership, your guidance, and your experience to know when…
Set your goals, set your startup – don’t start drifting now. It’s tougher to come back when you’ve let yourself drift. Now’s not the time to start.
How you deliver? The path you took to get there? That matters. But more importantly, what you deliver – is it workable, does it scale, is it easily understood, can someone jump onto it next, is there a standard to it, how can it be used in the future – will always matter more. You can deliver great, quality, scalable, reusable work – in any situation you are in. Focus on what you Deliver.