Performance Reviews

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With the end of the year comes the dreaded performance reviews that large companies put their employees through. Many companies require their employees to rate their performance over the past year in a variety of categories.  Many  of these categories are vague and so naturally it is difficult to rate yourself objectively.  From experience here are a few tips that help with the process:

• Keep a log of important accomplishments during the year -  Starting with January list all important job related activities by month in a log or journal (electronic or paper - it doesn't matter).  This helps you remember all you did during the year to verify you met or exceeded expectations.  Management is quick to forget much of the good you do so it is essential to help strong documentation to bolster your review.
• For any areas you think are weak or below par, address them with an action plan -  Chances are that if you think your are weak in a particular area, your manager may be thinking the same thing.  If you know why your performance was below standard, own up to it in the review meeting.  Then show a plan of how you are going to get better,  Bosses will be impressed.
• Ask for new assignments, responsibilities, or training -  Performance reviews are not all about how you can do better.  It's also about asking for opportunities and getting managements commitment to help you.  Management is responsible for helping develop employees to their potential.  Some managers need to be reminded of this.

Performance reviews can be positive if they are treated as a tool for communication and not a punishment.  Going into a performance review with areas addressed will go along way to moving forward.

(Courtesy Scott Adams)

Self-Directed Work Teams

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In an earlier post I discussed integrated product teams which are cross-functional teams composed of members of different  skill sets all focused on developing a product or improving a process.  Another kind of effective team is the self-directed work team.  A self-directed work team may be cross-functional in membership.  Or it may contain mostly members from a single functional group or organization.

A self-directed work team is a team which can operate autonomously to identify problems or areas needing improvement, outline plans to solve the issue, and proceed to implement the plans to a successful conclusion.  These teams do not require constant monitoring by management.  If fact they perform much better if management "stays out of the way".  It's not to say management should not be briefed on what the group is doing and a timeline for completion  - they should be aware.  It's really a fact that a self-directed team knows how to work without being told what to do.

One of the teams I worked on at Boeing was a self-directed tooling team that solved various tooling issues related to F-22 fighter airplane manufacturing.  It was a team made of experienced design engineers as well as new engineers out of college.  They common thread was that everyone on that team wanted to make the program better and worked hard to reduce costs, improve flow, and steam line operations.

One incentive to encouraging aspirations to developing a self directed work team is to set up standards for different levels to work teams.  Start at criteria for a  Level 1 self-directed work team and list completion criteria for this level.  Keep going up to say a Level 4 which would be the most complete and autonomous work team.  Provide incentives to teams to reach a Level 4 and you will find that more employees will work to improve their effort without a lot of management oversight.

A good article on self-directed work teams is here:

http://www.qualitydigest.com/magazine/1995/nov/article/self-directed-work-teams-competitive-advantage.html#

 A self-directed work team working an issue
(Courtesy www.ctspring.com)

Database Management

For an operation to be successful many items need to be tracked in some type of database or software system. These systems are often used by manufacturing, engineering, and even management to track an event or project that all three groups (and more) have a stake in.  If one person is in charge of input and output of the database (including management report outs) then if is a straightforward process as long as you can depend on that person.

Database management requires keeping status current
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The problem comes when you have many people tasked to keep status on a project.  I have been personally involved in several of these scenarios and it is always a struggle to keep the database updated on a regular level.  One such program required the engineers to track data set releases and provide revised  estimated completion dates (ECDs)  if scheduled events were going to be late.  As the focal for the database, I would often have to track down particular engineers and extract a new ECD and input it into the database for them.  It was a lot of extra work which was unnecessary if the engineers were more diligent.

There are several things that could have been done better to help the process go better:

• Have management emphasis (and enforce) the importance of keeping databases current with the latest information.  Employees will focus on providing updated information if management is keeping emphasis on timely updates.  Management must not just send e-mails out requesting updates; they need to personally talk to those who are tardy on their inputs.
• If several groups use the database, assign one person in that group to be responsible for ensuring updates are happening.  It is pointless for one single person to be responsible for inputs of hundreds of users.  Break the task up and get help.
• Schedule daily stand up meetings to allow those who are tardy to explain to upper management why they haven't kept up.  I guarantee that this will ensure the database is current.

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