Keeping Track of Your Work
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No one (not you, not your manager) remembers everything you did in the last year. To help yourself and your manager during the performance review season and remind yourself of the big picture, keep a brag document.
List accomplishments
Include a theme or big picture
Include fuzzy work (e.g. refactor, interview, etc.)
Include follow up (I shipped this feature, which has this impact)
Goal for this year / next year
Projects
Accomplishments
meta-work, e.g. can we cut scope?
impact, numeric (e.g. save x dollars, sell y dollars) and non-numeric (e.g. pass an audit)
Collaboration & Mentorship
help peers
mentor intern / new hire
answer questions from other teams
code review
internal talk or workshop
Design and Documentation
Company Building
What you learned
Outside of work
blog posts
talks / panels
open source work
industry recognition
Probably need to review these questions every quarter.
What are your strengths? How do you know that?
What do you need to work on? How do you know that? How are you working on this area? Is your company helping?
How long have you been at the current company?
How long have you been in the current role?
When was your last promotion of role? How was this communicated to you? What is the one thing you believe you did to earn this promotion?
When was your last compensation increase? (Compensation = Base salary, bonus, and/or stock)
Do you feel fairly compensated? If not, why? If not, what would you consider fair compensation? What facts do you base that opinion on? Have you told this to your manager?
When was the last time you received feedback from your manager?
What compliment do you wish you could receive about your work?
Are you learning from your manager? What was the last significant thing you learned from them?
What was the last thing you built at work that you enjoyed?
What was your last major failure at work? What’d you learn?
What was the last piece of feedback you received (from anyone) that substantively changed your working style?
Who is your mentor? When was the last time you met with them?
When was the last 360? What was your biggest lesson? (A 360 is a process where a neutral party gathers feedback from all the humans in your working sphere. Your managers, your peers, and if you’re a manager, your direct reports. I try to do a 360 every three years because the synthesized feedback is always revealing.)
When did you last change jobs? Why?
When did you last change companies? Why?
What aspect of your current job would you bring with you to a future gig?
What is your dream job? (Role, company, etc.)
What is a company you admire? What attributes do you admire?
Who is a leader that you admire? What are the qualities of that leader that you admire?