I was in a small software company and was the sole developer assigned to a project for a client product group. The client wanted a desktop utility to index and search the contents of locally stored textual documents. What’s more, the utility had to support a variety of languages, including Chinese, Japanese, and Korean.

I had never worked on anything like this, and I had to start from scratch. I spent quite a bit of time researching how to approach the textual search engine, which I figured was the technically difficult and risky part. This was before Unicode was widely adopted, so supporting Asian languages was not trivial.

My research was taking so long that the head of the company was getting antsy about it. I was sensing his discomfort, so I figured I had to explain myself and be more transparent. It was a very small company of about fifteen people. I decided to put together a slide presentation for everyone that would explain the technical challenges I was dealing with.

The talk went well. My colleagues left with an understanding of the problems I was grappling with.

Lesson learned:

One of the pillars of scrum is transparency. Don’t leave people in the dark and disappear down a rabbit hole. Keep them apprised of what you’re doing and what kind of progress you’re making. If you’re going through a rough patch, say so. Consider asking for help.

Even nowadays where people are most likely part of a team with a task board and daily stand-ups, it’s possible to hold back in ways that prevent yourself and your team from being more effective and productive. I work on listening to my gut feelings about when I need to be more open, especially when it feels uncomfortable to do so.