[mopeloi]

I was the only engineer at a not-tech-oriented NGO, so they had me on-site to check up on the team developing their app. At the end of December they had an initial app - I'm not a mobile dev, but it looked OK for an MVP. We showed it to leadership and everyone approved.

We then went on 2 weeks vacation. When I came back, I was surprised to hear the contract was nearly up - they had supposedly been working over our vacation. This app looked identical to the MVP we'd seen before. I was upset, but there wasn't much we could do. Also it turns out the app didn't look flashy enough for leadership. This was a major wake-up call for me - I messed up here by not critiquing the app or making clear work hours expectations - but also I discovered that demo-ing an app to a whole group leads to a lot of group-think. The criticism only comes later and then you are screwed.