Finding Your Strengths: Personal Reflection
Continued from this post.
In the final two blog posts in this series, I want to explore two conversations related to exploring 6th Sense Analytics data with an eye towards developing your Personal Improvement Plan. In this one, we'll first look at analyzing your personal data:
Personal Analysis
It usually starts by analyzing your projects. Analyze each project you're working on by average Active Time by file.extension. This will explore the technology mix associated with the project and start to sensitize you to where you�re spending the majority of your time specifically by technology type.
You'll want to compare this against two things: Where you thought you were spending the majority of your time and where �the project� thinks you're spending the majority of your time. You're looking for disconnects or gaps. Also look to see how these percentages map to your strongest technical abilities. For example, if you're core strengths are developing low level J2EE server code and your spending 90% of your time writing Javascript, then you are clearly not leveraging your strengths. You should look to migrate towards your strengths.
Beyond the technology part is workflow or work balance. I think of this as the question that asks: (1) where are you spending the majority of your time; and, (2) does the mix reflect where you should be spending the majority of your time?
In order to sort through this, you'll want to look at relative Active Time by Activity across all of your work and probably also by specific technologies and tools. You're looking for patterns in this case. For example, what is your average balance in pre-development (analysis, research, TDD), development (coding), and post-development (unit testing, debugging, check-in) and is it appropriate for the sort of things your team is building
One thing I think is truly important is to check your overall effectiveness--not in terms of counting lines of code or other module-level counting. Instead, I'm talking about understanding how adeptly you're able to focus by analyzing Flow Time. You'll want to fully understand the dynamics of your personal Flow Time per day of the week and over specific activities. For example, are you more likely to get into the flow when you're coding versus when you're testing? If so, you might look for opportunities to improve your testing focus by perhaps changing offices or working from home.
While reviewing your personal metrics is a significant aspect of how you'll grow, it's only part of the insight puzzle. You really need to see how you stack up against your team, organization, or overall community. That's where we're going next...
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