Management Blog

Management 101

Treat your people like you want to be treated yourself.
:)
Today I met with my manager, about my individual development plan (IDP) for the rest of this year and the beginning of 2007. I'd submitted one in which I said I was looking three years out, but the tasks were focused on the immediate future. She challenged me to:

1. Think about what I want to be doing in 2011. Not the specific job, but rather the characteristics of a job I'd like to have.
2. Once I've determined what I hope to be doing, define what deficits I have currently that will impede my progress toward that end.
3. Design an IDP to mitigate the risk of my lack of skill / ability in those areas.

Then she said - figure out what the businesses five year goals are -- not "make more money" or "spend less money" but what are we going after? Web testing? It has been said that in 10 years we won't be in this business.... What business will we be in? What will be QA's role in this new business? What will be my role?

Next steps:
1. speak to the Product Manager about the goals of the test driver product in the next five years.
2. speak to upper management about the two biggest pita issues we experience today.
3. speak to our local visionary about what he sees as our business in 2011.Define the role I want to plan and identify the steps I need to take to reach that goal.

That's what an IDP is for.

hmmm.

posted by StarByte @ 2:08 PM