Self improvement and grow

Agenda

Reasoning

How to find an improvements areas

Documenting

How to get to your goal

Best practice

Q&A

Motivation

Self actualization

Esteem

Love and Belongings

Safety

Physiological

Creativity, problem solving

Self-esteem, achievements,

respect

Being part of a group

Security of employment

NA

Reasoning by Maslow

Growing a good developer from a junior to senior, growing your self, sorting your knowledge – Self-esteem and achievements

Each person is a challenge, you can use some parts of previous work but each time you will need to adjust and find solutions for special cases – Problem solving, creativity

Each grow should be aligned with very high standard and showing very high level comparing to the market – Group standards.

Market is very hot, it is very hard to get a middle / senior personnel on a “average” project – Safety of employment.

Reasoning by cost

Why could he get better salary or position without corresponding knowledge – Number of team members affected * salary difference

Why could he do less than me? – Price of contract or client

Not satisfied clients and not finished tasks – Price of contract or client

Adherence to company (attrition rate)

How to find an appropriate goal

Project needs. Ask a customer for the feedback.

Project needs. Historical data and data analysis.

Code review – gold bullet

Personal gaps in a fundamental knowledge.

Career path. Each #positionname has some specific knowledge.

Personal wishes.

Company roadmap.

A bit of bureaucracy. Should you document your goals?

Gap

Where are we right now (X)

Where should we be reaching a goal (Y)

Gap is (Y)-(X)

A bit of bureaucracy. Should you document your gaps?

SMART/SMARTER principles

Specific – target a specific area for improvement.

Measurable – quantify or at least suggest an indicator of progress.

Assignable – specify who will do it.

Achievable - I like it more.

Realistic – state what results can realistically be achieved, given available resources.

Time-bound – specify when the result(s) can be achieved.

SMARTER - Evaluated and Reviewed

Specific

Five 'W' questions – What: What do I want to accomplish?

– Why: Specific reasons, purpose or benefits of accomplishing the goal.

– Who: Who is involved?

– Where: Identify a location.

– Which: Identify requirements and constraints.

How will I know when it is accomplished?

Indicators should be quantifiable

How: How can the goal be accomplished?

When?

Measurable + Assignable + Time-bound

Does this seem worthwhile?

Is this the right time?

Does this match our other efforts/needs?

Are you the right person?

Is it applicable?

Realistic

SMART/SMARTER principles

Specific – target a specific area for improvement.

Measurable – quantify or at least suggest an indicator of progress.

Assignable – specify who will do it. Achievable - I like more.

Realistic – state what results can realistically be achieved, given available resources.

Time-bound – specify when the result(s) can be achieved.

SMARTER - Evaluated and Reviewed

Self improvement as a goal

What is a goal? (dictionary descriptions)

The terminal point of a race

The end toward which effort is directed

The terminal point of a race

Build a list with all goals you have collected

Find priorities, no equal priorities allowed

Estimate each one

Estimate available time for grow

Build plan

Follow

The end toward which effort is directed

Build a list with all goals you have collected

Find priorities, no equal priorities allowed

One by one find a small activity you should do each day to get to your goal

Stop on a reasonable amount of items

Do each day

Gap description Gap – Want to get knowledge of algorithms and data structures

Comment - Getting experience in a Algorithms (search (binary and graph), sorting (merge, quick), basic analysis). Data structures (list, queue, stack, trees, graphs)

Actions:

Employee:

Go through the (https://www.coursera.org/course/algo)

Go through the (https://www.coursera.org/course/algo2)

Go through the (Introduction to Algorithms, 3rd Edition, by Thomas H. Cormen)

Mentor:

Check all lab exercises done for both courser courses to have correct, clean, readable code. For all labs usage of data strictures should be correct and optimal.

Evaluation criteria:

All lab tasks for both courses done and appropriate certificate acquired. Verbal test with mentor passed.

Experts opinion

Stanford

MIT (http://ocw.mit.edu/)

PMI

Courser specializations

Certification paths and prerequisites

Best practice – finding a gap/goal/plan

Best practice – part 1

Exit criteria is “must have”

Reading as a base

Practice as “must have” condition

Review as “must have”, feedback as an alternative

Ask for a help from a SME

Specific in every point. Skill - level and description. Action - roles and evaluation criteria for every action. Do not allow yourself to go with etc and some not specific items.

Do not mess with goals

Do not overkill - do not try to put everything (for example for a junior to senior). It's better to have 3-4 well defined goals than 20 not defined.

Do it once for a half an year.

Share.

Try to find background projects or bench projects or personal projects to play with.

Create reading lists.

Best practice – part 2

Know your and team goals.

Share your ideas with a team and management team.

Maintain personal development plans.

Help to maintain company skill development plan.

Best practice – implementation

Manager is a support role - find you way to your teams.

Communicate – this is the first and most important.

Always know where to find technical guru.

Do not try to resolve everything by yourself.

Know your constraints.

Be ready, no other trainings are so hard as related to self development.

Be the lead in a grow, show by your example.

Best practice – motivation

Eugene Yakovlev PM, Head of Odessa Office Sigma Software