6 posts tagged with "Developer Productivity"

There is a sentence in the Bible that sounds suspiciously like something you would hear during a Monday morning status meeting: “While your servant was busy here and there ...”

It appears in 1 Kings 20:35–43. A prophet, disguised as a wounded soldier, approaches King Ahab with a story. During battle, he says, someone entrusted a prisoner to him with very clear instructions: guard this man. If the prisoner escapes, your life will answer for his life. Unfortunately, while the soldier was “busy here and there,” the prisoner disappeared. King Ahab hears the case and gives his judgment without hesitation: “So shall your judgment be; you yourself have decided it.”

Then comes the awkward part.

The prophet removes his disguise and reveals that the story was about Ahab himself. God had entrusted King Ben-Hadad to Ahab's judgment, and Ahab had released him. Ahab had just pronounced judgment on his own behavior without realizing it.

It is one of those wonderfully uncomfortable moments in Scripture where a man discovers that the sermon is, unfortunately, about him.

But hidden inside the story is a principle that reaches far beyond ancient kings and prisoners: when you accept responsibility for something, you also accept responsibility for navigating the difficulties attached to it. Circumstances may explain why you failed. They do not automatically remove your responsibility for whatever was genuinely within your charge.

That applies whether you are a CEO responsible for a company, a pastor responsible for a congregation, a father or mother responsible for children, a husband or wife responsible for a covenant, a manager responsible for a team, or an intern responsible for updating the spreadsheet without somehow deleting Q3.

Welcome to adulthood. We have responsibilities.

I recently came upon a job posting and had to pause.

Not because the responsibilities were strange.

Not because the role was fake.

But because the gap between the expectations and the compensation was loud enough to start speaking in King James English.

The company wanted a Technical Project Manager for a fintech and crypto product. Remote. Full-time. Reporting directly to the Founder and CEO.

Somewhere in a startup office, a meeting is happening that should have been an email. Deadlines are discussed with confidence, priorities are “aligned” in real time, and words like velocity, ownership, and urgency move freely across the room. Everyone nods. Everyone agrees. And yet, if you pause long enough, a strange realization settles in. No one is entirely sure what is actually happening. The team is busy, but not effective. The company is moving, but not progressing.

Somewhere in a quiet office, a church hallway, a startup meeting, or a family living room, a familiar drama unfolds.

A task was promised.
A deadline was agreed upon.
An expectation was set.

And then… nothing happens.
An explanation arrives instead.

There is always a reason. A circumstance. A complication. A cosmic alignment of events that made success impossible. The weather was wrong. The tools were wrong. The instructions were unclear. The timing was unfortunate.

In this moment, something subtle but powerful is revealed.

Somewhere in a meeting room, a sentence is spoken.

“We need this in a week.”

A pause.

Then the sequel appears.

“We actually needed it yesterday.”

These are the favorite buzzwords of many project managers and leadership teams: Speed. Velocity. Urgency. Ship it. Push it. Launch it. 🚀

FasCraft: The FastAPI Project Generator That Actually Makes Sense​

Because copying and pasting the same database configuration for the 47th time isn't "being productive" — it's being stubborn.