Wait, I thought it was underpromise, overdeliver?

I had my iteration meeting with Micah today at 4PM. With all iteration meetings there is a demonstration phase and a planning phase. The demonstration phase is where the deliverables (the user stories) are shown to the client - you can think of it as Santa coming down the chimney with his sack filled to the brim with gifts and he is handing you all the gifts you requested since you made the nice list for this year. The planning phase involves estimating and discussing what user stories will be delivered upon the next iteration meeting. In general, iteration meetings should be thought of as heartbeats - a steady, reliable rhythm of meeting up with the client at the same time every week.

Unfortunately, I fell short in delivering the agreed upon user stories for this iteration meeting. I have never felt so embarrassed, disappointed, and guilty knowing that I had multiple chances throughout the past week to rein myself back and complete the user stories before allocating my time to other priorities. My lack of self-control & propensity to delve too deeply into an activity and, in the process, forget about my other tasks led me to this particular situation. Nonetheless, Micah graciously gave me a second chance and extended the original deadline to next Tuesday.

Today’s Tasks

• Iteration meeting with Micah

Challenges

• Not being able to complete all the user stories 😧

TIL

• How much this job means to me seeing how emotional I got from the iteration meeting :sweat_smile: …so let’s make sure next time I’ll not only meet the set expectations but to exceed them. (Let’s focus up and put in the work!!)

Regarding the iteration meeting/the apprenticship in general:

Looking back at the iteration meeting, I did not mean to get emotional when I was speaking to Micah, but I could not help myself. This is because I was reminded of how fortunate I am to even be in this position and be a part of this great company – granted this is my first job in tech, so it’s not like I have previous experience that I can use as a baseline for comparsion, but to think how far I have come from working as a dishwasher at a sushi restaurant in Portland to being a software apprentice at Clean Coders I am equally humbled and amazed at God’s plan for me.

Moving forward, I will strive to communicate better and if it seems like I cannot finish a user story by the deadline I will reach out to the client (Micah in this instance) and let them know in advance. Furthermore, the #1 priority in my life over the next four months will be this apprenticeship because I want to maximize my learning and I want to become the best software craftsman I can be. To be honest, I don’t care too much about being the best of the best but rather my focus is on whether or not I am giving my all and becoming the best version of myself. With that being said, I would rather have my actions do the real talking than saying things that sound good.