One story to tell.

It’s something it's not easy to share publicly.
(That's why I use more GIFs to put down pressure a little from me..)

But one that will teach you very important lesson.

An embarrassing incident that changed the way I approached ABAP development forever.

Here it goes.

One day, my technical director assigned me to code a major project.

Yes, just me.

Because I was the only one who had the required certificates.

And others were busy ;-).

FINALLY!

Great chance for me to prove my management I am worth being promoted.
(...fyi, it was 6+ years after I started with ABAP)

Scope sounded simple enough.

Our client, a gigantic multinational, was spending a ton of money on storing data.

Most of it was historical.

Nothing to do with day-to-day operations.

My job was to create a program to archive this historical data to save them money yet keep them accessible as per legal requirements.

Scope? Clear as day.

I rolled up my sleeves and went to work.

Easily delivered the project on time.

Handed it over to the client.

And…

All hell broke loose.

The program I coded BROKE THEIR SYSTEM.

Here’s what happened (... in simple words).

The program worked perfectly fine for its intended purpose for a specific department.

However…

Our client decided to use software company-wide.

A scenario my software wasn’t ready to handle.

It started DELETING critical files it wasn’t meant to touch.

Hundreds (if not thousands) of employees couldn’t work.

Every hour the problem is unsolved was thousands of dollars wasting down the drain.

And all the fingers were pointing at me.

The pressure was huge.

I couldn’t eat nor sleep.

Management was breathing down my neck.

Demanding to solve the problem N-O-W.

But how can you find a solution for a software that’s not meant to work in this scenario?

Well, good question...

I had to turn into "Sherlock Holmes mode" digging deep in their system.

Remember what I said about saving space but keeping data accessible for legal regulations?

Because even if my software was removing data -- it was also storing it in a hidden location for later retrieval.

Lucky me, this data stayed in the system.

[Phew]

Well, that saved my back.

At least partially.

Data has been encrypted and stored in a way that nobody could read.

And out of desperation, I created a "time machine".

Program that manually searched for the data.

And retrieve I did.

As if somebody just turned back the hands of time.

The whole ordeal took 10's of hours but it stole years from my life.

To be honest...

My confidence was shaken.

Colleagues who used to look up to me suddenly treated me differently.

The respect that was so freely given seemed to be lost.

And that’s not even the worst part.

Everything that happened?

It was all PREVENTABLE.

You see, coding was the EASY part.  

At the end...

It was my lack of communication that killed me.

Just like most introverts, I’d always just nod and say "yes" during meetings.

I thought I would look stupid if I would ask questions showing that I did not understand something.

And that’s what exactly happened at the end.

I looked stupid.

Looking back, if I’d just asked a few simple questions to our technical director about the scope of the project --- or simply told him the limitations of what I created, it would’ve saved us a ton of misery.

But it is what it is.

So instead of crying, I've done this.

I developed an INTROVERT-FRIENDLY DEVELOPMENT WORKFLOW.

I have started to use it on my own.

Tested it on various projects.

Small.

Mid-sized.

Big projects.

You name it.

Results?

Here is what my collegues posted to my LinkedIn profile:

Have you seen the "Communication" part? ;-)

Okay, one more to prove it.

See?

Things that stand out are not even related to ABAP.

Great news for you...

I teach the whole framework all my students at ABAP Academy to

• remove guesswork,
• cut project time by half, and more importantly, ...
• have peace of mind that what you're doing is exactly what a client wants.

It’s what professionals use in real-life.

An unfair advantage in the hands of newbies.

And it’s exactly why my students shoot up the corporate ladder even with limited work experience without hunting for empty certificates that tell you nothing about how good they really are.

In fact, you’ll meet Marek in my next email.

Believe it or not, he landed a well-paying junior ABAP developer jobs just 4 months working with my team...

EVEN IF he studied History on the University of Arts.

Talk about starting from scratch. :-)

Here’s the best part.

What he did?

It’s replicable.

And it’s not as hard as you may think.

Let’s talk about it in the next email.

Regards,
Laco