For years I undersold my highest-value skills: analysis and design
I undersold myself as just a software developer for years, not realizing my highest-value skills: I analyze situations and design solutions.
The analysis process is a skill unto itself. In software development it's called business analysis, in medicine it's diagnosis... forensics, epistemology, market research, etc. It doesn't matter how good you or your AI is at implementing if your analysis of what's needed is flawed or incomplete from the get-go.
Robust analysis drives brilliant design. Knowing how to write code is not the same as crafting a solution, nor architecting it for long term success. Architecting, both from the technical and solution angles, is my other high value skill.
How was my one-woman-show consulting firm staying afloat amidst the rise of the #Salesforce partners? I used to wonder. Working with other consulting companies and development teams made it clear. There were plenty of technically skilled people in the ecosystem. It was my knack for business analysis and architecting that set me apart.
My next extrapolation? Realizing that those same skills are at the heart of ethical sales. I spent years considering myself a bad salesperson... while also handling all the sales for my company. Such a disconnect. What I didn't identify with was the used-car-salesman caricature of sales. An ethical salesperson genuinely looks to solve problems for people, and that's what I always did.
Later I came to realize it wasn't only in tech that I applied those skills. I didn't just translate my clients' processes into software; I worked with them to smooth friction, facilitate handoffs, and ensure key stakeholders had visibility. Those skills translated naturally to my role as a leader, shaping processes that actually work for the team.
What high-value skills did you not recognize in yourself? What are you still underestimating? 🤔
#Leadership #BusinessAnalysis #SoftwareEngineering #FutureOfWork
Jessie Grenfell
Jessie has spent 20+ years architecting and delivering software for organizations where complexity is the norm: financial services, insurance, nonprofits, and regulated industries where getting it wrong isn’t an option. She specializes in the hard problems: unique operational workflows, cross-system integrations, and compliance requirements (HIPAA, CCPA, SOC 2) built into the design from the first conversation.
Her AI work comes out of that background. She has shipped AI to production, not just piloted it: a multi-agent research pipeline that cut a client’s investigation time from over an hour to minutes, and natural-language analytics that let executives ask plain-English questions of their operational data and get validated charts back. Years building business critical systems taught her where AI belongs in a business process and where it doesn’t.
At Codality, she leads engagements from discovery through delivery, because she’s seen what happens when that thread gets cut.