The perils of magical invisible work
Oh no! Important work isn’t being done. Why doesn’t everyone else see it? It’s time to save the day.
Or is it?
Early in my career, I often saw areas that were being neglected. People didn’t seem to get it, so I’d figure out ways to solve the problems and fill the gaps. When I mentioned things mattered and got brushed off, I assumed they just didn’t get it. It was easy to think that people didn’t care. I was often able to get my core work done and then I was just go around fixing the broken things. In many ways I held things together with duct tape.
Sometimes it turned out great (for the customers, company, and me), but more often it didn’t. At least not in the long run. For years I was proud of my magical work I made happen. Now I try to avoid magical invisible work.
I see a lot of people falling into the same trap. Especially with people who care deeply about their work and user experience. It can feel so hard to see things that suck and feel helpless to fix it. Sometimes quietly getting things done is the right option. But before you decide to do it, it’s worth having additional perspective to feel more confident in your assessment of the situation and maybe consider some other options.
- Are you heading towards burnout? To deliver on your core work and manage to take on a bunch of extra work will be too much. This is especially true if you aren’t getting valued for that work.
- Is it really the most important work? There will always be more to do than there is time. If you have extra time to spend, are there more important things? If it is the most important, have it as a thing people know you’re signed up for.
- What are you masking? When you silently make problems go away, it’s great if they are then gone forever, but if you are consistently doing work that no one knows about to solve a problem and then some day you stop, the team could be set up for even bigger problems.
- Is there confusion being caused? What if other people are thinking about the area and don’t know what you’re doing? What if they start their own effort and everyone wastes time?
- Is someone actively “letting the fire burn” to determine if the area should be invested in? If so, and you quietly do work there you could be undermining goals you don’t know about.
If it’s a small amount of work or part of your scope, you don’t need to be pedantic. If you are empowered to decide how you approach an area, this may not matter. However if you find that work you’re doing is off the radar, make sure you know why.
- Don’t burn yourself out.
- Be realistic about the relative priority of the work. If you look at the whole list of things that could be done and the other things are more important, rethink if you should be doing the work.
- Once you feel it’s valuable, take steps to get it added as work you think is needed. Whether your team has a backlog or other ways to track things, first start by just adding it. People are busy, they might not know.
- If people don’t see the value, focus on painting a picture of the problem. Often telling someone what you think should be done just sounds like work. But once you help them see the problems and potential impact. Assuming you work with reasonable and competent people, they are most likely missing the context you have.
