FIELD NOTES / CULTURE

Seven Chicken Idioms That Make Sense in Engineering

Idioms we use too often, and what they teach us.

January 6, 20264 min readBy Dolores Peckham
In shortDo not count your chickens before they hatch / Do not put all your eggs in one basket / A watched pot never boils, but a watched deploy does fail / Henpecked.

1. Do not count your chickens before they hatch

Never plan on a feature that is not shipped. Shipping is the only fact.

2. Do not put all your eggs in one basket

Distribute your data across regions.

3. A watched pot never boils, but a watched deploy does fail

Watching helps. Automate the watching.

4. Henpecked

A project overwhelmed with tiny requests from every direction. Triage the pecks, or you will lose the day.

Written by Dolores Peckham, Head of Data and AI. Disagree? Tell us. We read every message, usually before the second coffee.