The Busy Body is an engineer who skips all over the codebase:
theyโll fix a front-end problem here, jump to some refactoring,
then fiddle with the database over there.ย
But the Busy Body is problematic over a long period
because these engineers end up without a strong sense of ownership.
Thereโs nothing for them to point at and say, โI made that.โ๐ฆ
Even if they can solve a wide range of problems,ย
lacking something that they own can lead to attrition.๐ฅบ
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Engineers exhibiting this pattern will show high levels of Impact
and lots of small pull requests without any identifiable home base in the code.ย
Theyโll show a high level of Involvement in the review process.๐
And because they typically spend their time building
and spend less time bug fixing their own work,
theyโll show high levels of new work๐ and relatively low churn.
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Give these engineers something to own top to bottom.
Whether itโs a module, a new feature, or a large project,
ask them to do more than just โget it doneโ.
Ask them to become an expert๐ช in that particular area or on that specific project.
Then, double down on their strengths in that area:
assign them the 1.1 version, the bug fixes, the unit tests, and the documentation,
then give them the 1.2 and 1.3 versions as well.
Allow them the opportunity to get to know their domain,ย
to work with it, to teach others about it, and to develop a mastery.๐งโโ๏ธ
Ask them to give a presentation on the project to highlight lessons learned and best practices.
The key is to nurture a true sense of ownership.