These are the principles that guide our decisions here at HCA. These principles are a reflection of the HCA mission statement:
Above all else, we are committed to the care and improvement of human life.
The full mission and value statement can be seen here
| Section | |
|---|---|
| Information | |
| Experience | |
| Growth |
I am obligated to use information/data responsibly. This one is kind of obvious, I should protect a user's personal information from someone that would use it to do harm. This also means that I should only use the minimum I need from her, I can always collect more information in the future if I need it. With this principle comes the idea of transparency. Transparency with what, why and how data is to be used should be communicated clearly to the user and prior to collection. This ensures that I am accountable to this principle.
This principle doesn't just cover user information but also organizational information. Sometimes as the author of software I am entrusted with algorithms and other bits of information that could be important to the business. I am responsible for safeguarding that information through my implementations. Transparency plays a key role here too, I must be open to having my code reviewed and the systems audited to ensure proper usage/protection of information.
I am tasked with creating software that provides a great experience. I must ensure that I have a nice visual design and that it is also functional, providing the user exactly what she needs when she needs it. It also means that the software should behave as a good citizen within the ecosystem, it should use system resources appropriately and release those resources when it doesn't need them.
You can't provide a great experience without stability. I must make sure that the software I produce is stable now and in the future. Stability and maintainability go hand in hand, for a product to be stable in the future it must be maintainable. Maintainability can be defined simply as making sure the authored code and resulting system can be understood by someone else.
It is my responsibility to grow and learn. The landscape of IT is consistently changing, my users and organization are relying on me to remain educated on those changes. I don't see education as taking time from my work but is a part of my work. It is as fundamental as making my code readable for the next guy. I view this in another way too.
It's my job to challenge my limits and the limits of my organization. This is the idea of being a disruptor, pushing the boundaries of comfort in our software implementation within the constraints of the first two principles. Along these lines it is my responsibility to challenge ideas and the established paradigms. Participating in that debate encourages an organization to grow within and without. As a working professional I have to be a part of that conversation.