Sometime not being an optimist pays. It pays when we want to do risk analysis for a project, it pays when we want to do code reviews and it definitely pays when giving the feedback.
Risk Analysis : I guess we have to play a bit of a critic for our own application to really realize the potential risk very early in the project and be able to do the risk analysis and mitigation upfront. Not knowing the risks and not analyzing the application critically may turn out to be the biggest risk eventually. May be knowing about them and playing with our worst fears will lead us making steps to cut down the possibility of them getting true.
Code Reviews: Being critical when doing the code reviews and while pair programming helps in improving the code quality and code design. It might get a little touchy when someone points to a problem we feel we did a good job at, but please keep in mind it is not about being negative to the person who implemented it but about being constructive in improving the coding best practices and code quality. Thumb rule while doing the code reviews hate the bad code not the coder.
Feedback: Think negative about the process, about the people and about the company. If we are not doing it we are not really helping us and everyone around us in learning and improving.
