Voice of the DBA

Tag: career

  • 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.

  • The End of Year Career Evaluation

    This month’s T-SQL Tuesday invitation asked about end-of-year operations that you might take on your databases. I don’t know how many of you follow any specific end-of-year routine, but you may.

    However, that got me thinking about an end-of-year career evaluation. It’s not something I’ve done, but I do often look back and forward and build some career goals. That has been helpful in ensuring I do some work on my career each year, even though I’m much closer to the end than the beginning.

    If I were younger, I would look at my career in three ways: what I need to learn, what I want to accomplish, and how to move toward my goals. I’m actually going to tackle these three areas myself, but since we’re near the end of the year, these might be things you think about as well.

    Technology changes so much, and we are often challenged by new requests, requirements, or circumstances to work with new software. I think the cloud has spurred this on, and as a result, I expect most people find they need to learn things constantly. Having a plan, and keeping a list of the technology is a good way to capture the entire bundle of challenges you face. Whenever someone asks you about something new, or you hear in a review that you should improve, add those things to your list. It’s likely you’ll never get to them all, and certainly, you won’t be an expert in them, but you can develop lots of competence and fluency in different areas.

    The second thing to look at is how to take this big list of skills, languages, software, etc. and prioritize it. Cut the list down to something manageable this year. Or maybe just this quarter. Being organized can help you deal with the overwhelming number of items on your big list. In this stage, I’d order things by what’s interesting to you. This might be an understanding of YAML to update pipelines as code. It might be solving some types of complex queries in SQL that you struggle with. It might be learning to better express yourself clearly and succinctly in email. List the things you need to work on.

    This isn’t easy, and this is really a prioritization of what is most important to you. You might talk with co-workers, your boss, or your partner to help decide what you can do. You should also think budget here, in terms of your time. Can you spend more than 8 hours a month on something? Carving out 2 hours a week is likely manageable, but more can be hard. Think hard about this, especially if your employer doesn’t give you any time while at work.

    The last evaluation should be easier. It’s taking the things you are working on and building a plan to actually improve yourself. Do you need to draft better crafted emails and have people review them and give suggestions? Are you going to pick specific problems to solve in SQL? Maybe you want to tackle a specific Power BI report? All these are examples I’ve used myself, but you might have different things from your second list. This is the short-term plan you’ll implement.

    I wouldn’t make this too detailed a plan, but I would include enough to guide you. Maybe this is actually spending a month of lunches on something? Or just two lunches a week? I wouldn’t schedule them all out, but I’d have some specific things I need to tackle, in some order, which at least gives me a plan. I wouldn’t include timelines here, but rather, what is the first thing to do, the second, and so on.

    This sounds like work, and it is. That’s how you move forward, and how you shape your career to be what you want. Be deliberate, make decisions that are best for you, and then execute on those decisions. That will help you find the best career and job for you.

    Steve Jones

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  • Improving Skills at Work

    A large part of the success I’ve had in my career has come from growing my skills, both technical and soft, throughout the years. I’ve always been driven to learn more and improve my ability to accomplish the tasks I’ve been assigned. Or those that I’ve sought out and tackled. A little initiative has been valuable in many successful reviews in the past.

    There is a shortage of skilled IT workers. There are numerous job openings that I see in many companies, at least outside of some of the large tech firms. Many of those have been laying off workers, especially in some of their divisions that haven’t been as successful as expected during the last few years.

    At the same time, a lot of companies are becoming more discriminating about who they hire. They don’t just need bodies, they need skilled bodies that can do the work they are struggling with, often in the DevOps, cloud, and data analysis areas.

    While a lot of you reading this newsletter will have data skills, are they the ones companies need? Do you understand Git, DevOps, builds, and pipelines? Are you familiar with cloud technologies and gluing systems together remotely? Can you handle python, Spark, Power BI, or business requests to do something with AI/ML?

    I’m often not surprised that many senior data people don’t have exposure to these technologies and aren’t sure how to gain skills. I am surprised that more employers aren’t upskilling existing people or reskilling them in new areas. It seems far too many companies don’t invest in their people, even in today’s world where hiring is both very expensive and time-consuming. It’s also frustrating when you can’t find qualified candidates.

    There’s a good article on upskilling and reskilling and the importance of having a plan inside your organization. This goes hand in hand with a number of presentations from companies at the various DOES conferences over the years. The successful companies that embrace a digital transformation (whatever that means), DevOps, and the Cloud have ways to bring their current employees along. They invest in their people, requiring them to grow, but assisting them on the journey.

    Not everyone wants to move to the cloud or DevOps or AI/ML. That’s fine, but my view is you have to embrace some change in your career if you want to create new opportunities for yourself and have choices in your future roles.

    If your company doesn’t do enough to help you grow into new roles with new skills, maybe send them this article. Make a business case that you can do more with some help, and you’re willing to invest some effort yourself to grow. Managers know hiring is hard, and if you’ve been a good employee, I think they often are willing to invest in you.

    If they’re not, then many you ought to think about that a bit and find out what you can do better so that they will invest in you. Not everyone makes it through corporate transformations, but many do if they are flexible and put in some effort.

    Steve Jones