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Owning Outcomes, Not Tasks

5 min read

Tech Lead

Your team gets tasks. You translate them into outcomes. 'Done' means 'we achieved X,' not 'we shipped code.'

Eng Manager

Manage to outcomes. 'What did we achieve?' beats 'what did we do?'

Owning Outcomes, Not Tasks

TL;DR

  • Tasks are "build X." Outcomes are "achieve Y." AI can do tasks. You own outcomes.
  • Outcome-owners ask: "Did this work? Did it matter? What's next?"
  • The shift from "I did my tickets" to "I made this thing happen" is the career differentiator.

There are two ways to work. One: complete the tickets assigned to you. Two: own the result — did we actually achieve what we set out to achieve? The first is task-doing. The second is outcome-owning. AI is great at task-doing. You need to be great at outcome-owning.

The Task vs. Outcome Mindset

Task: "Implement the new checkout flow."
Outcome: "Reduce cart abandonment by 15%."

Task: "Add monitoring to the API."
Outcome: "We detect and resolve incidents within 5 minutes."

Task: "Write the migration script."
Outcome: "We migrate without downtime and with no data loss."

The task is the how. The outcome is the why and the measure. When you own the outcome, you care if the task actually achieved it.

Why This Matters With AI

AI can complete tasks. It can write the code, run the migration, add the tests. What AI can't do:

  • Notice that the feature shipped but didn't move the metric
  • Decide we need to iterate because the first approach didn't work
  • Go back to stakeholders and say "we need to change the plan"
  • Own the "did this actually help?" question

That's outcome ownership. You're the one who cares whether it worked.

Quick Check

AI shipped the feature. The ticket is done. What can AI not do that you must?

How to Shift

  1. Reframe your work — For your current project, what's the outcome? Not "ship the feature" but "users can do X" or "we reduce Y."
  2. Measure — How will you know it worked? Define it before you ship.
  3. Follow up — After you ship, check. Did it work? If not, what's the next iteration?
  4. Communicate in outcomes — "We reduced error rate by 40%" beats "We added retry logic."

The "That's Not My Job" Trap

"It's not my job to measure." "Product owns success." "I just build what they ask for." That's task-thinking. Outcome-thinking says: "I'm invested in whether this works. I'll measure, I'll ask, I'll iterate."

You don't need permission to care about the result. You need to choose to.

Do This Next

  1. For one project you're on, write down the outcome (not the task). How will you know it worked?
  2. After your next ship, check the outcome. Did we achieve what we wanted? If you don't know, set up a way to find out next time.