In some cases, this advice might apply to product manager (or whatnot) at the point they decide to push/ship a feature/product. - Code does the thing and is

In some cases, this advice might apply to product manager (or whatnot) at the point they decide to push/ship a feature/product. - Code does the thing and is at 90% polish - *or 80%, 50%, etc. This is a quality issue. Off topic, IMO, as this is about completion, not quality or polish* - Ship the feature to 3 enterprise clients boss promised for Q3. - Now you are at the point this post is about. At this point it's time to open your POV to understand again what the thing is about. What are the clients going to do with it? When? Who? What's the communication chain? Now your job is to communicate. Understand who's involved. Listen to them. Communicate to them. Write a few emails well formed, high effort emails. Do presentations, live tutorials, assisted user sessions. Have goals in this space. Within a "job," people can be very insulated from the brutality of the last 10%. It's possible (also comfortable, normative, etc) to read the paragraph above this one and say "not my job." That can apply to software, research and lots of other areas. "Think outside the box" is usually presented in neutral ways that don't challenge us emotionally too much. That's a play version. The real box is our definition of the job, task, project, etc. Real, objective success is usually dependant on stuff outside this box. Success is when the client uses the software, likes it and gets benefit. Sales thanks you. Your boss is happy. Everyone gets a raise and they bring back pizza Tuesday. An impossibly broad definition of success is emotionally impossible. It's too hard, too much failure, too little success, too much. Being so broad, it can also disconnect our alignment from the company's. Even in academia, the broadest possible betterment of science is not usually a workable POV. So... the workaround is to expand and/or break out of the box at strategic points. Shipping is such a point. That allows you to have your (necessary) box but not totally neglect aspects outside of it.