Voice of the DBA

Tag: goals

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

A few days late, and I missed April, but I’m trying to get back on track for May.

It’s been a hectic travel time the last couple months. April was mostly my second job as a coach and May was mostly work. June is a mix, and the in and out of a routine can be a challenge. I made a little progress, but the large amount of things I’m doing impact my ability to make much progress outside of work.

Most of the things that I have done were in conjunction with things related to work. The limited progress is mostly around the limited opportunities to find a common item with work and goals, but I did manage a touch.

I’m raising the goal slightly as I made progress despite the schedule.

Grade: B-

Here are the goals:

Work
- DP-900 – Passed
- DP-300
  – Stated studying, practice tests around 80% correct, need to schedule
- Demo with SQL Server – 20% – dev db set up, started on pipeline
- Demo with PostgreSQL – 20% – Dev db set up
- Demo with MySQL – 0%
- Feedback book – 100% – HIGHLY Recommended
- Good Strategy/Bad Strategy – 40%
Personal

I made a slight alteration here. I didn’t try to hook up to Google Sheets, but instead pasted in some data and started to try and get this moving.
- Link Google Sheets to Power BI – 0%
- Create Report – 40% – I have a report working for some of my metrics.
- Create Dashboard – 20% – A basic dashboard up, but need to decide on what to show here.
- Get people using it – 0%
Community
- Support the Colorado groups by speaking twice and helping get one event set up
  – 40%
  - CO Springs event set up
  - Meeting with Denver SQL about an event
- Speak at 3 other user groups outside of Colorado – 66%
  - Spoke at DBA Fundamentals group
  - Spoke at Toronto SSUG
- Support SQL Saturdays – Help get 10 events run in 2022
- Volunteer 4 days with Habitat – 0 days
June 3, 2022
Goal Progress for Feb 2022
I set goals at the beginning of the year, and I’m tracking my progress in these updates during 2022.

February became more of a work month for me, and a somewhat busy month outside of work with life. I didn’t do enough on my career, and am more stalled than I’d like. I let distractions take over more than I should, and I felt a bit bad at the end of the month, rushing through some things the last week of Feb to make a little progress.

I’m slowing down, but at least I did something. I’m lowering the grade because I just didn’t do enough.

Grade: C+

Here are the goals:

Work
- DP-900 – Passed
- DP-300
  – Stated studying, practice tests around 60% correct
- Demo with SQL Server – 5%
- Demo with PostgreSQL – 0%
- Demo with MySQL – 0%
- Feedback book – 72%
- Good Strategy/Bad Strategy – 0%
Personal

I made a slight alteration here. I didn’t try to hook up to Google Sheets, but instead pasted in some data and started to try and get this moving.
- Link Google Sheets to Power BI – 0%
- Create Report – 0%
- Create Dashboard – 0%
- Get people using it – 0%
Community
- Support the Colorado groups by speaking twice and helping get one event set up
  – 33%
  - CO Springs event set up
- Speak at 3 other user groups outside of Colorado – 33%
  - Spoke at DBA Fundamentals group
- Support SQL Saturdays – Help get 10 events run in 2022
  - 3 scheduled, 2 more close
- Volunteer 4 days with Habitat – 0 days
March 1, 2022
Goal Progress for Jan 2022
I set goals at the beginning of the year, and I’m tracking my progress in these updates during 2022.

My first update. I spent most of January unwinding slightly and studying. So far, I think I’m doing OK.

Here are the goals:

Work
- DP-900 – Passed
- DP-300
- Demo with SQL Server – 5%
- Demo with PostgreSQL – 0%
- Demo with MySQL – 0%
- Feedback book – 68%
- Good Strategy/Bad Strategy – 0%
Personal
- Link Google Sheets to Power BI – 0%
- Create Report – 0%
- Create Dashboard – 0%
- Get people using it – 0%
Community
Grade: B

A good first month, but I need to keep moving forward in February.
February 4, 2022
Goals for 2022
I set goals at the beginning of last year, and I’m doing the something similar this year.

Last year I didn’t do well in my goals. I definitely had the resolution failure, where I ended up being more excited in Q1 than Q2 or Q3 and felt rushed to do more in Q4. This year, I want to re-examine how I do things a bit more.

There are a few areas I want to build some competence in for future work, but I’m less worried about the ambitious aspect of improving myself for another job. I don’t want another job, at least not another full-time job I need for the income. I’m mid 50s, looking to retirement, and I want Redgate to be my last employer.

Therefore, my goals are a mix of a few things that matter for Redgate and a couple personal ones that pique my interest.

I also know that life and work will change, and my interests will rise and fall. As a result, I’m going to leave space to adjust and add goals in June. Therefore, I’m tackling less, but in these areas:
- Work-Related
- Fun and Personal
- Community
I do want these to be measurable, so I need specific goals I can check off as done or not, rather than a subjective measure.

Work-Related

Two big items here: DevOps and certification. I started the certification goal last year and did nothing until someone at work asked me to take a test for Partner status.

Certification first. I need to do these items:
- DP-900
- DP-300 (or DP-203)
I can measure those by pass or fail.

I also need to expand my demo work a bit and include some other databases. As Redgate evolves, what I really want is a good DevOps demo that includes at least 3 different database platforms and allows me to demo things from our various offerings. I’d like to be able to demo something and have it go live during a talk or class. As a result, I’m aiming to build a DevOps flow, from a git repo to multiple database platforms to publishing something that can be viewed live. That likely means some sort of website that reads from a DB and displays information on a page. I need to include these things by year end:
- repository with multiple folders for platforms
- test platforms (likely containers) for 3 data stores
- CI processes (3 ) that build from my repo.
- A live website that reads from the dbs (3 pages or 3 sites), updating from real time deployments.
Those would be good measurements. I also need to complete two books. The feedback book from last year and Good Strategy/Bad Strategy, which is used inside Redgate.

Fun and Personal

I had hoped the Advent of Code would capture my attention for more time, but as the puzzles get harder, and life outside of work is busy, this isn’t enough of a priority. I’ve been watching our Redgate developers work the 2021 puzzles at night, posting thoughts and struggles after work. Clearly I’m not enough of a developer to do this outside of work.

I am looking to combine some of the things I do already outside of work with those career related items. I have a Google Sheet for stats that I share, and a PowerBI Desktop report. I need to get the data in a database and make it available for others. I want to play with some of the Azure stuff, so I’m looking to set up more of a “DevOps” style flow with functions and apps that takes data from my sheet and puts it into an Azure database. Then I can more easily publish this into PowerBI for a live report.

The measurement here would be that I can update an XLS or db and have a Power BI report or a new XLS automatically generated.

Community

I am a supporter of the community where I can. I am hoping to see more events and do more speaking in 2022. I know that depends on how the pandemic goes, but I’m aiming to tackle these things:
- Support the Colorado groups by speaking twice and helping get one event set up
- Speak at 3 other user groups outside of Colorado
- Support SQL Saturdays – Help get 10 events run in 2022
- Volunteer more with Habitat – I want to get out to at least 4 build days.
January 14, 2022