Getting Things Done in Large Tech Companies: A Strategic Approach

In this article, you'll discover what it truly means to "get things done" in large tech environments, why completing tasks isn't the same as delivering value, and practical strategies to make your work visible to decision-makers who matter.

1. The Endless Garden: Understanding "Done" in Tech Companies

In mathematics, you can complete a proof. But in the real world of technology, nothing is ever truly finished. Much like planting a tree in your backyard, building a web application or implementing an AI model is just the beginning - there's always more watering, pruning, and maintenance to do.

This fundamental reality creates a challenging environment where the work never ends. Your ML (Machine Learning) model can always be more accurate, your automation workflow more efficient, and your codebase cleaner.

Key insight: The work of technology isn't about completion but about strategic pausing points.

• Remember that perfection is impossible - even the most sophisticated systems are works in progress.
• Understand that the notion of "done" is ultimately a social agreement, not a technical state.
• Recognise that your perception of work quality may differ from how others value it.

2. The Competence Trap: When Productivity Becomes a Problem

For skilled engineers and technical professionals, this endless nature of work becomes a dangerous trap. You see an infinite queue of tasks you're capable of doing, and you dive in, delivering a constant stream of marginal improvements to a particular system.

I've mentored teams who pride themselves on continuously improving their Power Automate workflows or refining their recommendation algorithms. From their perspective, they're crushing it - working at top capacity with no downtime. But often, they're not doing their actual job: delivering maximum value to their organisation.

The trap looks like: You've spent three months perfecting an internal tool that only incrementally improves efficiency, while missing opportunities to work on projects with strategic visibility.

• Question whether you're optimising for personal productivity or organisational impact
• Track how long you've been working on the same system without changing focus
• Consider whether your improvements are still yielding proportional returns

3. The Real Definition of "Getting Things Done"

In large organisations, getting things done primarily means finishing things. But how do you finish in a world where improvement is infinite? You get projects to a point where decision-makers at the company are satisfied - then you declare victory and move on.

Think about the most successful digital transformation initiatives you've witnessed. They weren't necessarily the most technically perfect solutions, but they met business objectives and were recognised as successes by leadership.

Practical approach: Define clear success criteria at the start of any initiative, aligned with what matters to decision-makers, not just technical excellence.

• Set explicit "good enough" thresholds that signal when to stop and move to the next priority
• Document and communicate completed milestones to build a track record of delivery
• Learn to recognise diminishing returns - when additional work yields minimal value

4. Making Your Work Legible to Decision-Makers

The second crucial element is ensuring your work is legible - visible and understandable - to the people who evaluate your contributions. By default, technical work appears as a generic technical activity to executives. They can't distinguish between crucial high-impact work and pointless code reshuffling.

The most straightforward path to legibility is working on projects already on leadership's radar. But you can also make other work visible by connecting it to business outcomes like cost savings, revenue generation, or risk mitigation.

Visualisation strategy: Create simple one-page summaries of your work that highlight business outcomes, not technical details.

• Translate technical achievements into business metrics whenever possible
• Regularly communicate progress in terms of problems solved, not features built
• Build relationships with managers and skip-levels who can amplify your work's visibility

5. The Art of Strategic Abandonment

Finally, mastering the skill of "declaring victory and walking away" separates truly effective tech professionals from those who merely stay busy. This doesn't mean doing sloppy work - it means recognising when additional effort provides diminishing returns.

I've seen many talented engineers continue tweaking and refactoring well past the point where their work stopped being perceived as successful and started being seen as wasted time. Instead of delivering one perfectly polished project, you could deliver two or three impactful ones.

Decision framework: Ask yourself, "If I spend another week here, will decision-makers value that more than if I turned my attention to another priority?"

• Review your project portfolio regularly to identify work that should be wrapped up
• Practice the discipline of limiting work-in-progress to force completion
• Celebrate "good enough" solutions that meet business needs, even if they're not technically perfect

6. Next Steps: Applying These Principles

The most effective tech professionals understand that "getting things done" is ultimately about perception and impact, not technical completeness. They focus on:

1. Finishing projects to leadership's satisfaction
2. Making their work visible and valuable to decision-makers
3. Moving on to new challenges rather than endlessly polishing the old

If you're looking to develop these skills further, consider joining one of our InstinctHub workshops on strategic technology leadership or digital transformation project management. These sessions provide practical frameworks for balancing technical excellence with organisational impact.

Remember: In large tech companies, your career advances not by how many tasks you complete, but by how many significant problems you visibly solve.

This post was inspired by a post on Sean Goedecke: Getting things "done" in large tech companies