Voice of the DBA

Tag: career

  • Knowing Your Technologies

    A while back I ran across a blog post that talks about the difference between database snapshots and database backups. There are certainly some similarities and some differences, as well as an overlap in the places where you might choose to use each of these technologies. Both might be useful as a way to recover from a bad code deployment, but both aren’t necessarily helpful for a DR situation where the primary server has a catastrophic hardware failure.

    It’s often the case that we learn only a bit about some of the technologies in SQL Server. That’s understandable as the platform has grown very complex, encompassing a vast array of technologies and options. There is often some overlap between them and possibly different places where you might choose to use one or the other to solve a problem.

    In plenty of cases, one technology will stand out, especially when you have gathered enough requirements to understand the entire situation. More information can help you narrow down your choices, and even make a decision, if you know both (or all) the technologies well.

    If.

    The key here is that as you look for solutions, you should be sure that you understand the technologies well. Dive deep into each of your choices and make an effort to determine the positives and negatives, the advantages of one over the other, as well as the limitations or holes that may be present. You can work often work around limitations, but you should be aware of what they are.

    We can’t learn everything today, or even everything that we need to know in a short period of time. However, when we are faced with a situation that has multiple solutions and unfamiliar technologies, we should ensure that we try to learn, ask questions, and do our best to understand the boundaries of the question and the technologies that might solve our problem.

    Steve Jones

    Listen to the podcast at Libsyn, Stitcher, Spotify, or iTunes.

  • Goals for 2023

    This is the goal setting post for 2023. The previous ones were:

    As with previous years, I’ll break these into three categories: career, personal, and community. There’s some blend with all of these, but these are goals that I want to use to engage and grow my life in interesting ways. To aim for mastery, autonomy, and purpose, as Daniel Pink wrote in Drive.

    The idea here is to set goals for Q1 2023 and review in March. I’ll also do monthly reviews of these. The rest of this post should be repeated in all future posts.

    Reading

    I’m separating this out, as I’ll put a few things in here that span other areas.

    For Q1, I’m aiming for 2 books outside of the fiction I enjoy. These are going to be in these areas:

    • marketing – title TBD. Something to help me better understand how to approach this part of my job. There have been recommendations in our Slack channels, so I’ll pick one.
    • Coaching – Again, a few recommendations in groups I frequent.This is important as I influence young people.

    Both of these are items I’ll target for these reasons:

    • S – This is targeted, reading a book
    • M – I’ll finish or not
      • A- both
      • B – 1 done, 1 partial
      • C – 1 done
      • D – partial
      • F – not started
    • A – I read around 100 books a year, so 2 in a quarter isn’t too much.
    • R – Marketing is a part of my job and career at this point, so this is good. Coaching is something I do personally with kids and with customers for DevOps.
    • T – I have 3 months, until 31 Mar.

    Career

    My career has taken a strange turn in that I continue to do some technical work and consulting with clients and customers, but more of my effort is spent understanding marketing and sales. I pivoted slightly last year by reading The Trusted Sales Advisor,

    I also need to do more work with other platforms, at least to become more comfortable with them. I thought I might do more in 2022, but ended up getting buried with community stuff.

    For Q1, I’m doing to aim to do a couple things:

    • Set up a tracking system based on the book for my efforts with customers
    • Track and calculate my scores to help me better approach how I work with customers.
    • Review this with my boss and with someone in sales

    This is not a lot, but it’s a good start. I can review this goal as:

    • S – This will include a way to track things, likely Excel, and then some formulas or reporting to help me see how I’m doing. I also need to fill this out after each call with a customer. I’ll send it to a couple people in sales for review in March from two people. setting a reminder now.
    • M – I will have a sheet to look at, and a record of calls. I also have a review reminder set.
      • A – All calls tracked, review complete, data used to change my work.
      • B – most calls tracked, review complete,
      • C – half calls tracked, only 1/2 reviews,
      • D – less than half calls tracked, no review,
      • F – no sheet set up
    • A – Building a simple tracking sheet ought to be easy. The formulas are given. We used to track calls, now I’m adding in 5 minutes to think about how things went. Getting people to meet with me should be achievable if I make the time.
    • R – Important for my job
    • T – I have a 31 Mar deadline.

    Community

    A portion of my job is community. It’s also a passion. I spend time here outside of work, I volunteer and go to UGs/events when I don’t have to, and I certainly do work with SQL Saturday outside of my job. In fact, I was fixing PRs and updating the site while on vacation in Portugal, mildly anoying my wife.

    In terms of a goal here, I’m going to focus most on SQL Saturday and less on speaking for now. I likely will go to a few events, but I want to limit my efforts in Q1.

    The goals here will be the following:

    • 2 speaking engagements for community (SQL Sat Austin and SQL Bits are on my schedule)
    • Reach out to 10 SQL Sat groups that did not run an event in 2022 and motivate them for 2023. This should be at least 2 emails to each person/group.
    • Reach out to all 2022 organizers and ask about plans for 2023
    • Start coding a tool for converting schedules to HTML.
    • Hold office hours once in Q1
    • Send 3 monthly SQL Saturday updates to the community

    In terms of the review, I see them this way.

    • S – These are fairly specific. I can track emails. I can’t quite track motivation, but that’s something I need to do to help grow SQL Saturday back to where it was. I also can start putting code in a repo, which is a big step.
    • M – For the review, I’ll say this:
      • A – 2 presentations complete, 10 emails to new organizers, 36 to older ones, at least 3 commits and a MVP of a tool, office hours, 3 updates
      • B – 2 presentations complete, 8 emails to new organizers, 30 to old, 2 commits, office hours, 2 updates
      • C – 2 presentations complete, 5-8 emails to new, 20 to old, 1 commit, office hours, 2 updates
      • D – 1 presentation,  3 emails to new, 10 to old, no commits, no office hours, 1 update
      • F – lower than D
    • A – This can be tough. Finding time for SQL Saturday comes a1nd goes, as does motivation. I should easily do the talks, and I can easily reach the emails by making time. Office Hours can be tough, and the monthly newsletter is something I’ve struggled with.
    • R – These are community efforts that should help others. They don’t directly help me, other than building some skills as a leader, but they will help others if I can get more events moving.
    • T – All bound by the 31 Mar deadline.

    Personal

    My personal goals are going to be a little shortchanged here. When I look at what’s above, that’s more than I probably should tackle, though some of them should be quick to get through with a short bit of time every week.

    Coaching also ramps up, so I’m going to limit this to a couple things for Q1.

    • Use my Power BI report for stats
    • Update the Power BI report based on feedback from athletes
    • Build 6 wooden coasters – I haven’t made enough time for my hobby here, so I’m going to start small. We need more coasters (as noticed over the holidays), so I want to build 6. Same style, different.

    These can be rated as follows:

    • S – Use means I gather stats. Updates are from feedback. Coasters are specific.
    • M – Have I entered stats on the sheet, did I respond to feedback, coasters.
      • A – All stats entered in sheet/report. Take all feedback and do something, 6 coasters
      • B – all stats entered, some feedback, 4 coasters
      • C – All stats entered, feedback not influencing report, 2 coasters
      • D – some stats entered, no feedback used, no coasters
      • F – failing at stats
    • A – These should be achievable. The coasters should be 2 short periods
    • R – The first two are relevant to my efforts coaching. The last is just for satisfaction and to remind me of hobbies.
    • T – 31 Mar.

  • Outlining Goals in 2023

    Last year I set a bunch of goals, and I thought I did pretty good working on them. Not amazing, but pretty good. This year, I want to attack goals a little differently, so I’m going to think about how to measure things first, then set up the goals.

    One system of looking at goals is SMART. This stands for:

    • specific
    • measurable
    • achievable
    • relevant
    • time-bound

    In terms of my goals, I want to tackle some in this format in 2023, and see how this goes. With that in mind, I’m looking at things in this way. I have a few sample goals, but I need to think through these a little more.

    Specific

    In looking at 2022 goals, they were fairly specific, but not always. I didn’t define the personal ones well. The work and community ones were good.

    In 2023, I’ll look to ensure I specify each of these in more detail and have something to measure against. I need to use the 6ws (who, what when, where, which, why) where possible.

    Measurable

    This is the big one. Do I have metrics by which I can measure things. Certainly percentage read for books, but what about my demos? Can I really get these to a percentage of done? Or just work/not working? What about the number of events? That’s easy, but does it include other metrics. I ought to ensure I try to put some sort of way to definitively note whether I’ve achieved something or not.

    Examples could be:

    • Send 12 SQL Saturday newsletters
    • Reliable working process that moves data from source to target with more success than failure
    • Volunteer 4 days

    Achievable

    This is interesting. I thought all my goals were achievable, but not easily. If nothing new came up or life didn’t get in the way, I could achieve those. I think I’m doing well here, despite not finishing everything.

    Relevant

    My career is in a weird place. I’m closer to the end, and my growth in Redgate is more focused on marketing and sales, so less on technology. The tech matters, as I consult with customers and train them, but I do a lot more things that are very different.

    At the same time, all of the items I chose last year do help my career. Whether this is for content, for knowledge I’ll take to customers, for the recharging from volunteer days or reading. I don’t usually have a problem here.

    Time-Bound

    This is harder. No matter how I’ve planned, usually things get away from my and a portion of my schedule isn’t my own. I get asked to do things or assigned them, and that messes up plans.

    Life outside of work can also get in the way at times, and leave me less time to work on my goals.

    I’m going to tackle goals a little differently this year. I’m making them quarterly, thinking that’s a more manageable time-frame where I can predict some level of commitment.

    We’ll see.

    Aims for 2022

    For this year’s goals, I’ll try to work within the SMART system for goals. The T here, will be aiming for quarterly re-alignment of goals with life.

    I’ll still rate myself monthly and then roll those up for a quarterly review. I’ll adjust the goals quarterly as my schedule reveals itself. In terms of ratings, I want to use a school-type rating of A-F, but with these views:

    • A – exceeding expectations for goal achievement, making almost all goals
    • B – above average for goal achievement, making much more than missing
    • C – average goal achievement, making some, missing some
    • D – below average, missing more than making
    • F – completely missing most

    While I was mostly an A student in high school, with a good set of goals, I ought to be a B-C student. Life will get in the way, things will change, and I shouldn’t expect that I can devote as much time across the next few months as I plan for during this slow time of year.

  • Goal Progress for Dec 2022

    I set goals at the beginning of the year, and I’m tracking my progress in these updates during 2022.

    December is usually quiet, though this year I spent the first 12 days of the month out of town. That meant that I wasn’t getting much done, either at work, in my life, or on my goals. I did a little reading, but mostly it was work and holiday.

    I’m going to do the grade for the month and then look at how I feel about the year.

    Grades:

    • December – B+
    • 2022 overall –  B

    I made some good progress in December and managed to get a bunch done on my report, finished a book, and started on my demos again. Not amazing, but really good.

    For the year, I think I’ll give myself a B as I managed to read all the books, do some demo work, and get my Power BI skills growing. I also did a bunch of community stuff, though not quite as I saw it happening at the beginning of the year. Still, a good year overall.

    Here are the goals and updates for the month.

    Work

    Mostly reading this month, as I was traveling. I did reset my environment for a DevOps demo and got projects set up for SQL Server and PostgreSQL in the same repo.

    Personal

    Sent my dashboard to a few others to use. Not the entire team, but I got 4/10 using it to see what they think, which is a good start. With my assistant, we’re at 50%

    • Link Google Sheets to Power BI – 100%
    • Create Report – 75%
    • Create Dashboard – 60% – Added a main page
    • Get people using it – 50%
    • Coaching Certification – 100%

    Community

    • Support the Colorado groups by speaking twice and helping getting two events set up
      – 66%
      • CO Springs event set up and executed
      • Denver SQL Server SQL Saturday executed
    • Speak at 3 other community events (was user groups) outside of Colorado – 100%
      • Spoke at DBA Fundamentals group
      • Spoke at Toronto SSUG
      • Spoke at SQL Saturdays in Jacksonville, New Jersey, LA, Denver
        • Boston, Toronto in Oct
    • Support SQL Saturdays – Help get 10 events run in 2022 – 100%
      • We have had 15 run this year and 3 more scheduled
      • In Nov, we had 5 events complete – Sao Paulo, Oregon, Bangladesh
      • Seven events scheduled for 2023
    • Volunteer 4 days with Habitat – 0 days
      • Not happy about this still. I had hoped to go Sept 15, but they cancelled the build that day. Need to find another day, but it’s hard. They aren’t doing every Wed/Thur/fri, and travel is getting in the way.