Yup, this is this time of the year again… Depending on which company you are working for you might be getting close and close to the R-Day… aka Annual Performance Review.  With current tough economy and layoff by such giants as Microsoft, IBM and Yahoo! it is quite never raking for anyone who is going through this process.  I want to share some of my personal observation of how to prepare for the APR and how to position you in the best way to get the best out of the worst.

So, first of all performance review is an opportunity; an opportunity to get better bonus, promotion, new title or something else… just fill the blank. However being in both manager and individual contributor roles I see number of very common mistakes people are doing over and over again.

Mistake number 1. “Don’t create an iceberg”

To be successful in almost any large organization, you need to clear understand that most people who are in charge of your career have no or little clue on what you are doing. This is very sad, but this is the truth. I usually like to compare this with an iceberg.  The top, visible part is the most important part for your career and success within the organization. Your review most probably would be driven by the visible part of the iceberg and not by all the hard work and sweat you put into the foundation.  Many of the great software developers and architects I know concentrate only on the underwater part thinking that the hard work would pay off. It might… but it might not.  Another significant number of people I know or I have been working with concentrate solely on the visible part don’t caring much about foundation. I bet you can think about one or two of your peers right away, don’t you?  Sometimes this works, but more often following laws of gravity iceberg flips and unveils the insignificance of work they have been doing.

I want to talk a little more on how iceberg flips. Real life example. Six years ago, I was working in a hot online startup (though who wasn’t :) ) which had very significant revenue stream from online sales. One of our developers was constantly concern about stability of the payment system. Though, as you can imagine management successfully ignored all his concerns. So, being very proactive this guy spent 8 or 10 of his weekends writing very basic recovery and health monitoring system which pinged production every 10 minutes while keeping track of all deployments. If any of the services went down, recovery mechanism would trigger redeploying of last known stable bits. All this effort was completely ignored by all manager and PMs. This dev got average performance review and almost no bonuses.

Then one day production went down. I mean completely down. None of the transactions would go through.  Fortunately the recovery system kick-in and saved the day and hundreds of thousands. All key stake holders were super happy. So, what happened to our guy? Review time already passed by, so he got one week off and a thank you letter. Not a big reward considering he spent 10 weeks of his time anyway. At the same time, our team lead got immediate promotion to the manager position for “an exceptional ability to motivate people and anticipate problems”.  I cannot complain, as this is how I get into my lead role too. The developer spent his week off and left the company.

Call me cold blooded careerist but the moral of the story is that “Right thing to do sometimes not the right thing to do”. In other words iceberg flips but it flips unpredictable.

How to avoid this? Simple ! Don’t create an iceberg in the first place keeping both visible and foundation part the same all the time.  If you are doing some significant amount of work then try to estimate the impact it would make.  If the impact is way less than the amount of work you are putting in, then you are probably wasting your time. 

Mistake number 2. “You want something? Ask for it !”

Participated in the review process for the couple years, I saw same pattern over and over. One month prior the review everyone get huge activity boost. Ideas are flying around, people think about career and promotions and trying to overcome weaknesses they have and everyone hopes for the best.  One day after review all enthusiasm is gone.  Lot of people disappointed. Comment like “I was here X years, they should treat me better” are all other the place. But why do you think you should be promoted? What is the reason to give you more bonuses then to the rest of the team? 
So, if you want to get good review and promotion, think about it during all year. 

First, understand, what do you want?

A.    More money?
B.    Increase the scope and influence?
C.    Better title?
D.    Different responsibilities?
E.    Better life work balance?
F.    Acknowledgement of your hard work?
G.    Other…

You would be surprised how much easier to get something then you know what do you want ! 

Then, simply ask for it. Don’t demand but ask.

“What should I do to get .. X,Y,Z.?”
“Do you think it is achievable goal?”
“What areas should I work on to be ready for X,Y,Z ?”

These questions have one simple goal, to get your manager feedback and possible get him on board with your aspirations. Don’t be surprised, managers love this conversations and these type of questions. Why? It is way easier to work with someone who wants something. This is sets the base for negotiation and mutual reciprocation.

Mistake number 3. “Always know your results before the review”

If you are going into review meeting and you don’t know the results yet, then you are screwed. Always know your review score before the actual meeting. How? See top two suggestions: be predictable and ask ! Remember, review meeting is just reading your results from the paper. Nothing can be changed and none of your comments or explanations can do anything. Be proactive and work with your manager before hands to correct explain or address any concerns.

Good luck with the review !

PREPARING FOR PERFORMANCE REVIEWS:
http://trainingpd.suite101.com/article.cfm/preparing_for_performance_reviews

HOW TO GIVE PERFORMANCE REVIEWS YOUR EMPLOYEES LOVE TO GET
http://jobfunctions.bnet.com/abstract.aspx?docid=378155&promo=100511