Recently, I moved into my new home. It was very exited moment moving from older home to new one for my family. My kids were also exited, rather focusing much more on transition, they focus much more on other exited things i.e. amenities, play area, swimming pool and much more – this is obvious, and we left them with their excitement.

After getting the possession, there is general process to check all accessories given by the builder i.e. test all lights/switched/plugs are working, sanitary-ware are in proper place and functioning, door locks with respective keys, etc. One of authorized person guide us very meticulously about all the resources they have fitted for us as per the commitment given during book the flat.

In during my observation of the new flat, I found some of the pipes under washbasin and kitchen sink were not straight. Instead the pipe from the drain goes down farther than necessary, curves right back up and then heads into the wall. The entire fitting looks like U-turn. This entire process was challenged my Physics knowledge.

After getting free from my transit and arranged require stuff, I Googled and found it is a P-Trap. That’s because it looks like a P turned on this side.

Why do plumbers install P-traps? They must cost more to manufacture, so it increases their costs and time, which they may or may not be able to pass on to customers. They’re a little harder to install, so they cost the plumber time, too.

This question curious me to get answered. So, why?

Plumbers install P-traps because they prevent downstream problems. A P-trap under your sink will trap some crud and debris that makes it into the sink. Without a P-trap, debris would flow farther into your pipes and be much harder to fix when it creates a clog.

And good plumbers care about this even though they know they may not be the plumber to return to fix the problem. How smart they are?

Good plumbers care because they’re good plumbers. Installing a P-trap under your sink is simply the right thing to do because it prevents downstream problems.

As a being software developer, should we behave the same way? Good team members care - not just about their own work but also about the work of everyone downstream of them.

Writing a code is just a state of mind toward solving logical issue. Composing different patterns, best practices, considering different test cases and much more are value added during writing the code.

As a code reviewer, I was recently helping a team incorporate more automated testing into their work. Some programmers, who viewed their job as nothing more than writing what they considered good code, balked at the idea of altering their code to make future testing easier. Code testability, they argued, was not their problem—it was the testers’ problem.

The situation came to a head during a sprint planning meeting, when the testers were giving some really large estimates for testing code that was going to take only a fraction of that amount of time to program.

The programmers were asked if they could do anything to make the code easier to test. And it turned out there were some things they could do, but some of the programmers didn’t want to do them because they felt it would make their code less elegant.

They had defined their jobs as merely writing good code. Who cared if that code was hard to test?

If my plumber had done that, I would have had a fully functional sink, perhaps for years. But eventually enough debris would have made it past where a P-trap should have been installed and deep into my plumbing. This would have led to an expensive—and easily avoidable—repair.

When team members accept responsibility for issues caused downstream of their work, that team is truly prepared to succeed with agile.