Your Best Work is the Work You Are Proud Of

Strive for excellence, not perfection.

Make it good enough

It's likely that you've heard this before, but it's worth repeating–Your work is a reflection of who you are.

That said, being proud of your work means different things to different people. Generally, it’s the kind of work you can look back on and feel satisfied with the outcome. For some, that might be the first iteration of a product they’ve poured six months into and finally shipped. For others, especially those with a higher design standard, pride may come with the second iteration—once the rough edges are smoothed out and the user experience has been meaningfully improved.

For me, it’s usually the point where I’m no longer embarrassed by the end-user experience—somewhere after the initial release but before a major second version. Is it perfect? No. But it’s good enough for me to feel confident moving on to the next thing.

Knowing this, it's important to get alignment on what "good enough" means for your team. I've made the mistake as a leader of pushing for being proud of your version one, but not clarifying that further. When a team hears that, it becomes very personalized and can lead to misalignment of expectations. Don't let this happen to you. Be clear that it may be different for all stakeholders, therefore being proud will come at different times for all stakeholders.

It also may very well mean that not everyone gets to the version they are proud of, that's just a fact of software development. Be transparent that it's not about personal pride, but about the end-user having something tangible to use that is better than what they had before.

It's vital to define what "good enough" means for your team. For my teams, it's usually been when the product is truly sellable and has some edges polished. It has the key features the customer needs to accomplish their needs. It won't have every feature the customer asked for, but it will be better than what they had before.