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Connecting Tasks to Operating Modes

Summary

In this episode of Developer Tea, host Jonathan Cutrell introduces the concept of operating modes as a framework for improving work effectiveness. He argues that developers often focus on completing actions (like checking emails or reviewing pull requests) without considering the appropriate mindset or “mode” for each task, which leads to suboptimal outcomes.

Cutrell explains that an operating mode is like wearing a specific hat or playing a particular role that determines the type of output you produce. For example, reviewing a production-bound pull request requires a “highly detail-oriented fact checker” mode, while reviewing exploratory code requires a different, less scrutinizing approach. He illustrates how using the wrong mode for a situation can be wasteful or even harmful to the intended goals.

The host provides several examples of different modes, including information gathering (where you focus on learning and note-taking) versus personal connection and presence (where note-taking might actually detract from the interaction). He notes that software engineers often default to a mode of “conserving time and energy to ship features,” which while useful for coding tasks, can be counterproductive in interpersonal situations or higher-level business discussions.

Cutrell encourages listeners to evaluate their natural default modes and consciously choose the most effective mode for each task on their to-do list or calendar. By pairing actions with intentional operating modes, developers can convert their energy into better outputs and avoid the monotony of work that focuses solely on effort rather than meaningful change. The episode concludes with gratitude to listeners for five years of podcast support.

Recommendations

Tools

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Topic Timeline

  • 00:00:00 — Introduction to focusing on daily outcomes — Jonathan Cutrell opens the episode by asking listeners to consider what will be different at the end of the day as a result of their work and actions. He suggests this question should be a daily reminder that work has outcomes, and introduces the concept of thinking about the “mode” of your work to convert energy into better outputs. The host explains that many people fall into monotony where work becomes about the effort itself rather than evaluating what was changed.
  • 00:03:08 — Defining and understanding operating modes — After the break, Cutrell explains what he means by “mode” - a role or hat you wear that determines the types of output you produce for a given task. He uses the example of reviewing pull requests, showing how the same task (code review) requires different modes depending on whether the code is production-bound or exploratory. The host emphasizes that the mode you operate in can entirely change the effectiveness of your output toward your goals.
  • 00:07:05 — Examples of different operating modes — Cutrell provides concrete examples of different modes, contrasting “information gathering” (where you focus on learning and note-taking) with “personal connection and presence” (where note-taking might detract from the interaction). He illustrates this with a scenario where a manager dealing with interpersonal issues shouldn’t ask for precise times of events when someone is sharing feelings. The host explains that we often default to comfortable modes that may be wrong for specific scenarios.
  • 00:08:35 — Default modes and their limitations — The host discusses how software engineers often default to a mode of “conserving time and energy to ship features,” where work is defined as features shipped. While useful for coding, this mode can cause problems when it leads to ignoring personal stories or avoiding higher-level business discussions. Cutrell emphasizes the importance of understanding your natural default modes and recognizing when they won’t be helpful for specific tasks or interactions.
  • 00:09:45 — Practical application and conclusion — Cutrell encourages listeners to look at their to-do lists, issues, and calendars to identify what mode would be most effective for each task, especially in meetings and interactions with others. He thanks the sponsor Pathrise and expresses gratitude to listeners for five years of support for the Developer Tea podcast. The episode concludes with a reminder that consciously choosing operating modes can help developers move beyond just completing actions to creating meaningful outcomes.

Episode Info

  • Podcast: Developer Tea
  • Author: Jonathan Cutrell
  • Category: Technology Business Careers Society & Culture
  • Published: 2020-01-09T10:00:00Z
  • Duration: 00:11:18

References

Podcast Info

Transcript

[00:00:00] what will be different at the end of today as a result of the work and the actions that you take

[00:00:11] this is a fundamental question that you can put at the top of your journal you could put it

[00:00:20] in your code editor to remind you every day that the work that you do

[00:00:28] and the actions that you take they have outcomes and perhaps more importantly you can think about

[00:00:36] the mode of your work this is something that we don’t often think about as developers but you can

[00:00:43] think about the mode of your work to convert your energy into better outputs and that’s what we’re

[00:00:50] talking about in today’s episode finding better outputs my name is jonathan cutrell and you’re

[00:00:55] listening to developer t and my goal on the show is to help driven

[00:00:58] developers like you find clarity perspective and purpose in their careers if you’re like many

[00:01:04] people work becomes monotonous your job is no longer about outputs it’s no longer about

[00:01:12] evaluating what was changed at the end of the day because of your presence and your actions

[00:01:18] instead your work your efforts are about the effort itself you come in and you check

[00:01:27] emails

[00:01:28] because emails are part of your job the action itself is how you define success and while there

[00:01:38] are some benefits to this actually we talked about this at the end of last year the benefits

[00:01:43] of thinking about the things that you can commit to specifically you can only commit to actions you

[00:01:48] don’t control outcomes you only control actions and so you can only commit to actions but what

[00:01:55] often happens is we think about our actions and we think about our actions and we think about our actions

[00:01:58] as proxies to outputs we forget the actual output for example we check our emails because at some

[00:02:08] point in the past emails had an important outcome that outcome might be that you receive some urgent

[00:02:18] communication from a co-worker or perhaps you find out about somebody’s birthday over email

[00:02:24] or maybe you get support tickets coming to your email

[00:02:28] all of these things have good reason they have good outputs but we aren’t thinking about the mode

[00:02:35] of our actions every single day it’s much easier to think about the action on its own rather than

[00:02:44] pairing the action with outputs in fact we talked about this in a previous episode as well when we

[00:02:50] talked about functional meetings functional meetings are meetings that have a return value

[00:02:56] what are you returning at the end of the day and what are you returning at the end of the day and

[00:02:58] what are you returning at the end of the meeting what is the output in this way they are functional

[00:03:02] in the same way that a pure function has inputs and outputs we’re going to take a quick break and

[00:03:08] then we’re going to come back and talk about how you can evaluate your modes a little bit better

[00:03:12] and set up some defaults some good default modes but first let’s talk about today’s sponsor path

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[00:04:42] over to pathrise.com slash t that’s pathrise.com slash tea to get started today thanks again to

[00:04:49] for sponsoring today’s episode of developer t when you walk into work today and you look at

[00:04:56] your list of things to do

[00:04:58] you have a scrum board or you’re pulling things off of Jira or Trello or some kind of, maybe you

[00:05:04] have a notebook, whatever it is, wherever you are storing your list of things that are going to

[00:05:09] prompt action from you, you probably don’t have modes. You aren’t thinking about the mode for

[00:05:18] each of those actions. What do we mean by mode? Well, you can think of this as kind of a role

[00:05:23] that you’ll play, a hat that you’ll wear. The mode that you’re working in is going to determine

[00:05:30] the types of output that you produce for a given task. And as a result of that, it changes the way

[00:05:38] that you operate while you’re doing that task. So for example, let’s say your mode is to be a highly

[00:05:46] detail-oriented fact checker. And you’re going to put this hat on. You’re going to

[00:05:53] assume that you’re going to be able to do that. And you’re going to assume that you’re going to

[00:05:53] assume that you’re going to be able to do that. And you’re going to assume that you’re going to

[00:05:53] this role you’re going to work in this mode whenever you are evaluating a pull request

[00:06:01] in particular a pull request that is going into production because not every pull request should

[00:06:07] be treated the same right so you might have that mode in mind when a pull request that is just

[00:06:15] exploratory comes through and this is where the nuances actually turn out to be really important

[00:06:22] if you start fact checking and being highly detailed on a spike an exploratory bit of code

[00:06:29] that was never meant to go into production it’s more intended to show an idea well that level of

[00:06:36] scrutiny is not very useful in fact it can be wasteful or harmful to the intention of that

[00:06:44] pull request and so the mode that you’re operating in even though it’s the same kind of motions

[00:06:51] that you’re operating in it’s not going to be the same kind of motions that you’re operating in

[00:06:51] that you’re operating in even though it’s the same kind of motions that you’re operating in

[00:06:52] the same name of a task of reviewing a pull request the mode that you’re operating in

[00:06:59] can entirely change the output and the effectiveness of that output to your goals

[00:07:05] other important modes might be information gathering if your mode is to learn as much as

[00:07:15] you can about a topic then you’re trying to gather as much information as you can maybe you have

[00:07:20] multiple ways of gathering that information you’re taking a lot of notes you’re recording

[00:07:26] whatever the input stream is there’s a lot of things you can do when the mode is information

[00:07:33] gathering on the flip side if the mode is personal connection and presence then taking notes may

[00:07:42] actually detract from that presence asking too many questions about the details may actually

[00:07:48] frustrate someone imagine that

[00:07:50] you are a manager and you’re dealing with some interpersonal issues on your team

[00:07:55] and one person is coming to you and they’re trying to give you a kind of explain how they’re feeling

[00:08:00] about a certain situation and you start asking them for times of certain events well that’s

[00:08:07] probably not going to be very helpful to that person to making them feel like you’re connecting

[00:08:12] with the problem that they’re having so the mode that you operate in as we’ve illustrated in these

[00:08:18] two examples and there’s plenty more

[00:08:20] is both nuanced and incredibly important and what can happen is we can default back to modes

[00:08:27] that are wrong for a given scenario because we are working in that mode perhaps most comfortably

[00:08:35] or most regularly for example software engineers may default to the mode of conserving time and

[00:08:43] energy so that we can get as much of the work done as possible and in this scenario in this mode

[00:08:50] work is defined as features shipped and it makes sense that this mode would be the

[00:08:56] useful default for a software engineer what are we actually shipping as a result of whatever it

[00:09:04] is that we’re talking about but this isn’t the only mode that exists for engineers if this is

[00:09:10] the only useful mode for engineers then you might ignore someone’s story about their weekend

[00:09:17] and you may end up having a less effective time for them than you might have for them

[00:09:20] this mode also may keep you from engaging in discussions higher level business discussions

[00:09:29] about what the next thing is or how to kind of approach a new market so it’s important to

[00:09:38] understand what your default or kind of natural modes might be and also to evaluate when those

[00:09:45] modes are not going to be helpful once again i’m going to refer you back to that list of

[00:09:50] issues or your calendar try to understand what mode you’re going to be in for all of those

[00:09:57] kind of tasks that you have all of the events that you’re participating in especially in meetings all

[00:10:03] of the things where you are kind of interacting with another person identify the mode that is

[00:10:09] most effective for each of those thank you so much for listening to today’s episode of developer

[00:10:15] t thank you again to pathrise for sponsoring today’s episode today’s episode can be found

[00:10:19] at spec.fm

[00:10:20] along with every other episode of developer t i do want to take a minute to thank all of you

[00:10:25] this show has been around officially now for five years and honestly i cannot believe

[00:10:31] that it’s been that that it’s gone by so fast first of all but that we’ve been able to keep

[00:10:36] on doing this show and it’s because of listeners like you and it’s because you’ve shared this

[00:10:42] this podcast with your friends you’ve given reviews on itunes you’ve subscribed you’ve

[00:10:48] stayed a listener for a long time and you’ve been a part of this podcast for a long time

[00:10:50] period of time we have so many people who listen to the show on a regular basis and i couldn’t be

[00:10:55] more grateful for you thank you so much please continue to do those things the sharing and the

[00:11:01] leaving of reviews those are the things that help the show continue forward for another five years

[00:11:07] thank you so much for listening to today’s episode and until next time enjoy your tea

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