On Setting Goals

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A recent exercise at work has us setting goals for ourselves. Wanting to commit to them in a broader way I thought I would post them here. Goals are to be set and re-evaluated in a six month window to keep them within a reasonable measure.

Accomplishment Goal

Shipping something of merit above what you normally do.

Collaborate in a PI planning session as a product owner (By Nov 2020)

I recently stepped up to the role of a “Technical Product Owner” for one of our clients. For those that practice Agile, you’ll know PI as a longer form of goal-post setting. For this project we are balancing the PIs between several teams from different companies and that can be a challenging feat. My first session as a product owner and not just a technical lead will kick-off in September. I’ve given myself to November however as I may need to lean on our existing PO and for myself I want this goal to be met by being solo in this event.

Efficiency Goal

Getting more value out of a single hour by working smarter.

Better balance of consulting/coaching/self-development time (End Sept 2020)

Currently I’m checking email at 7AM and reviewing things until at least 6PM, sometimes even jumping back on in the later evening. At the moment I’m still shaking some previous technical responsibilities, learning new aspects of my new responsibilities, and haven’t refined my day-to-day process to quickly turn around quality work. Around 6 hours of my day would ideally be focused on client work, an hour on coaching, and an hour on self-development. I’m going to try more delegation, better dashboards, and process improvement to meet this goal.

Development Goal

Improving yourself and your skills.

Develop and host a “Being an Effective Consultant” training course (Dec 2020)

I have been sketching out some thoughts on how to be a good consultant. There are differences between operating as a consultant and that of a full-time employee. Originally I wanted to just ship this as a blog post, however I thought to try a different format to possibly use the content in a different way. Building a training course would force me to think more methodically about content generation, along with pushing me to practice teaching. I would like to have at least one two-hour-long basics lesson and an HLD for the broader course done.

Community Goal

Giving back to the collective knowledge/community.

Participate in Hacktoberfest again (Oct 2020)

It was a great itch-scratcher for deep technical work I don’t always get to do. Last year I contributed enough to meet the bare minimum to get swag, challenging myself to all being different languages. This year I would like to give back to all of the same communities, but one additional one this year in Rust. That would bring me up to 6 PRs successfully merged, with the languages being:

I would also like to help organize and kick-off Network to Code’s first participation in Hacktoberfest.

At least one more blog post by the end of the year (Dec 2020)

This one doesn’t really count. I’m looking to ship another helpful blog post on a more basic how-to. No measures of traffic will measure success, other than I like it and it’s well received by those I respect.