I'll give good odds that in most shops, if you pull this line more than a couple of times, your management chain is going to decide you aren't picking up enough work in sprint planning...
This isn't about showing off so that your boss thinks you're not busy. I think OP is trying to encourage people to care about their job to the point where they want to do it better.
I think what he means is: doing extra is insurance. It is knowing your job more than just punching a clock and getting the sprint done before going home and drinking. It is engaging in your task deeply so that you can do it better, whether that means architecting defensively, or being more nimble when something blows up because you went one step further and know it better.
I've had programmers that look at their sprints, see they have to do Task A, B and C, and do exactly tasks A, B and C. No more, no less. That's fine. That's better than doing task A and being overwhelmed (or whiny).
But some programmers do A, B and C and then look it meta-task D that is a "why A B and C?" task. They then see those tasks in a more holistic fashion.
No one ASKED them to do that. They took the initiative.
Those folks get promoted.
No one gets promoted from doing A, B and C and that's it. That's called status quo, or simply, "Doing your job." That's why your paycheck clears.
Sorry, but that's how it works.
I've found myself, peers, superiors, etc. to be on bell curves with respect to sharpness, being open to new ideas, articulateness, being able to see through buzzwords and BS, etc. Some people are good in some areas and not quite as good in other areas. Pair a "used car salesman" peer (articulate, not so bright, looking to their own advantage) with a "gullible buyer" superior (not so sharp, can't detect that they're being played) and your "better-suited" ideas that rise to the top truly are mediocre, bad, or outright wrong with respect to whatever characteristic "better-suited" applies. Of course there are examples of good ideas being well-received and acted upon, but don't pretend that only the cream rises to the top or that there are only isolated instances of the dregs rising to the top.
I say this as an introvert and as a person who chooses words carefully to reflect my best guess at the truth, which non-engineers commonly mistake for lack of confidence in product/estimate/my ability. Dealing with architects (or even seniors) who can't sell their vision or opinion and/or fail to amicably disagree on technical issues is always a painful experience. It does not have to be that way.
And then of course people disagree about if it's good or bad or normal?
> Engineers who do not master these skills are putting a cap to their career growths,
Maybe can make sense for an organization to give everyone some practice in communication and presenting ideas -- to give the good ideas better chances (also if the idea person initially wasn't a good communicator)
New university graduates don't, at least I didn't :-)
And they can stay clueless for many years, if they're a bit shielded from office politics by a caring manager
A trivial workaround: "hey team, a month ago I did some research on X, and maybe this is something that could be valuable for us to try". It's mathematically the same, but shhh.
You don't need to lie. It's actually better to reflect for some days on any new research.
Edit: Now I'm thinking about what kind of tooling I'd want to make the process seamless.
If the management doesn't like it, they'll figure it out that if you keep coming up with these then you must be spending time on them - continuously. :)
(I don't recall why, exactly. Something about how there's a chicken and egg problem, where they wouldn't have enough results to support the grant proposal if they hadn't already been doing the research...)
A private Git repo where all the work happens, and a public repo where everything is 3 months old, but history rewritten so the dates are up to date?
And a cron job and scripts to automate it all
Understanding the problem and finding what the business really needs instead of diving in.
- What will it cost
- What problem will it solve
- What advantages will it bring
- What disadvantages will it cause
, then there would be no reason not to bring it up. Maybe I'm just jaded, but when you try to bring up these points, people often (subconsciously?) try to "sell" their suggestion instead.
If planning is very top/heavy and ticket centered, that's a red flag for the organization.
Congrats, now you get credit for the extra work and you're a "10x rockstar".
The problem with faking your way into being a 10x rockstar is that expectations grow faster than compensation. The other problem is that if you can't sustain the pace, you're going to burn out and your life will be utter crap.
They always do, especially if you never switch jobs, but there's no need to unsustainably accelerate this process.
Do good work, don't burn out, get paid. Keep things simple.