To create business value, discuss requirements and ask questions

Your passive approach is stopping your career progression!

Are you tired of ad-hoc request after ad-hoc request? Do you want to have a greater impact at work? Do you want to progress in your career?

I wanted to share some ideas that were shared with me recently (published on Substack here).

Task-takers

The vast majority of junior tech workers operate as task-takers. A task-taker’s role is to focus exclusively on low-level technical implementation, while others handle the business side. They’re waiting for that front-door ticket to come in. They’re waiting for the business to request work, or they’re waiting to be assigned work by a senior-level colleague.

There is no glaring issue with this approach. It is one of many sensible ways for management to operate a data team. But task-takers may not be best positioned to create value. To be creative, you need to identify unresolved challenges and high-value opportunities. You need awareness of problems that business stakeholders haven’t shared with you. How do you position yourself to be a value-creator?

For example, let’s consider someone who builds Tableau dashboards for their job. A task-oriented mindset might…