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YearEndReflections

The typical corporate year-end ritual of performance evaluations make me cringe. In my experience it's more effective to have a conversation about what the year has been, and what shifts and changes are appropriate for the coming year.

I like to ask quesitons like these:

What were the major events of the year?

What were the major accomplishments?

What new skills have you acquired?

What have been your struggles?

What contributed to those situations?

What are you most proud of?

What do you want to do better?

What insights do you have, looking back on the year?

How does this inform your choices going into next year?

How will you build developing the new capabilities you want into daily work?

How will you know you're making progress?

Even if you don't have a manager who will have this sort of conversation with you, I invite you to answer these questions here.

EstherDerby 12.26.05

That's a lot of questions, so I won't try to answer each explicitly. These questions remind me of a project retrospective, which is, of course, notable more for it's usual absence than its effective execution.

This year, after Yet Another Lay Off, I became a self-employed consultant. I'm still going through head-hunters, at the moment. The more desirable direct arrangement is an exercise for the future. I'm trying to play the role of "player-coach." In other words, I can come in as a member of the team, and help directly with software development and help indirectly via teaching about software development and process improvement.

My first assignment in this role has been extended twice, into next year. Obviously the client has been pleased with my work. So am I, for that matter. I've been able to make some major strides in refactoring very procedural Java code into more flexible and resilient object-oriented structures while adding new functionality. I've introduced automated testing-both from the user perspective through the GUI and from the programmer perspective at the level of coding APIs.

The process of teaching has gone more slowly. There are only a few automated tests written by someone other than myself, and they're not terribly good tests. Others are still writing code by copy-and-paste, or by patching the code, often in inappropriate places.

Yes, I should be creating learning situations rather than teaching. And I have been, mostly relying on teaching by example. But even though it's a small team, it's not all located in the same facility. I find this a major barrier to knowledge transfer.

I keep thinking of Peter Block's admonition in Flawless Consulting, "Remember the secondary goal of consulting: to teach clients how to solve the problem themselves next time." The role I have chosen, player-coach, muddies the issues and makes it easy for me, and for the client, to accept a heavy emphasis on the "player" portion. Perhaps the learning has been taking place just fine, but is merely a slower process than is comfortable for an impatient person like me.

Due to corporate policy on the tenure of a contractor, it is unlikely that I'll be in this position come July 1. That gives me 6 months to find more effective ways to transfer some of my skills to the client. It's a challenge.

- GeorgeDinwiddie 12.26.2005

The major event for me this year was hurricane Katrina. I live far out of harm's way, but have many friends and relatives in Louisiana and Misssissippi. My anguish about this was that I found myself unable to drive south and be with people doing things that they wanted me to do. My brother and his family used water out of rain barrels for drinking water for a week. They would filter and boil the water as best they could. Stores nearby were not open as they didn't have electricity.

I was "stuck" in northern Virginia as I had commitments. I was helping with my son's soccer team. The gentlemen who was in charge of the team was in the hospital battling cancer. The team had commitments, so I had to stay and fulfill those commitments.

That just about killed me.

So what does this mean for the future? I want to have more flexibility in my commitments. Is that a contradiction? "flexible commitments?" Maybe so. Maybe the change must take place in my ISTJ mind that allows me to put one commitment on hold while I tend to something unexpected that is really more important.

Perhaps this entry is much more personal than professional.

DwaynePhillips 28 December 2005

The situation is personal, but personal behaviour is what you always get in a "professional" situation. The thing about AYE and the WIKI that make it special is that we feel safe enough to record a personal entry. SherryHeinze 2005.12.29