Annual Performance Appraisal – Earn Merit and Promotions

Annual performance appraisal is the occasion when you can showcase your hard work to your supervisor and higher management. The organization usually asks three questions at this juncture - What went well? What could have been better? What are your learnings derived to help the project, customer and organization? If you carefully prepare the answer to these questions before your appraisal meeting, the chances of getting a good band will increase. This good band will definitely help you to jump the organizational ladder and get promoted quickly. Many organizations consider bell curve where every employee necessarily needs to fall in predefined categories like A+, A, B and C. In the current changing scenario, the survival of the employee with C grade are very difficult in the organization. The job of such employees is at stake in the time of crisis. So try hard to keep yourself in higher performance grade. Below are explorations of these questions.                 

 

What went well?

 

To answer this question, regularly maintain a journal where you can list out your and your team's achievement. Collect all the hard work, deliverables, best practices and process improvements then segment them in a logical category. Show how you have created values and how this was beneficial to the project, customer and the organization. Be always ready with supporting data and evidence for each of your activities, in case somebody asks for it. Be precise and specific. Below are the examples to highlight your work to the Management:     

 

1.       I joined Project last year and understood all the aspects of the Project like project data, stakeholders and work environment very quickly. I started contributing to week one. I got involved with the team so quickly that the team never hesitated in discussing any difficulty with me.

2.       Daily, Weekly and Monthly Dashboard with the customer is always shared on time. These are CSS Feedback form, PH and Delivery Dashboard Submission, Engineering Audit, Project Risk submission, SMP update, SMR and Regular Performance appraisal of team members. I also maintain all the project documents and artefacts online. 

3.       I contribute to the successful execution of Managed Service and Mobile API development projects. I also played a vital role in Environment Upgrade and Execution of 11 Sprint. Proper handover of Project from the development team to the Managed Services team was carried out by me.

4.       I regularly conduct meetings like Project Planning, RCA, Analysis, Risk Collection, Brown Bag Sessions, TED Talks and discussions related to significant problems of the Projects.

5.       I conduct regular execution of all the Scrum ceremonies like Daily Scrum meeting, Sprint planning meeting, Sprint Demo and Sprint Retrospective Meeting.

6.       I help team members by sharing best practices, learning materials, events and workshop details. I coordination with Sitecore practice to provide Sitecore certification voucher to the team members etc.

7.       I also coordinate with various practices in the organization to find the resolution of the major problems or implementation of best practices in the Project. 

8.       I have sustained and maintained the pace of delivery in COVID-19 pandemic.

9.       I conduct sessions on various Productivity and Team building topics. Some of the examples are – Effectively work from Home, Effectively use of Productivity tools, Use of Planners, MS Teams, Scrum methodologies etc.

10.   I have taken new initiatives like Use of Azure DevOps Board from Sprint 28, Test Automation for Sanity Testing, and have conducted Brown Bag Sessions 

 

List out your Initiatives

 

The Management may refer to your work done as a part of your job profile and nothing noteworthy. They may question you, "What you have done out of the box?", "What are your initiatives?" To answer these questions, be prepared with the list of your initiatives. Be precise and specific. It is very important that you take initiatives throughout the year not just in the month of annual performance appraisal, only to showcase it. Listed below is an example:    

Have taken new initiatives for the benefit of Team and Project

 

-Test Automation for Sanity Testing using Selenium

-Service Now Automation and Weekly dashboard Automation using Community edition of UI Path

-Conducted Brown Bag Sessions

-Knowledgebase Maintenance

-Formal Training to New Team Members

-Online document repository system which is accessible to all the team members   

 

What could have been better?

 

This is an important question where Management may want you to narrate the improvement areas. You have to be very careful about revealing these areas. You are supposed to show that you have already identified these areas and are currently working on it. Share your action plan with proper deadline. If you need any feedback or suggestions for the action plan, this is the right time to mention it. I have enlisted some instances for your references:

 

·       To improve our productivity, we should be able to practice full implementation of Test Automation and CI/CD Pipeline for QA Build.

·       Additionally, Process Automation in ServiceNow and Sitecore CMS will enhance our productivity.

·       Constant and regular feedback from the customer will help us improve our process and optimize the product.

·       There is scope for architectural improvement on the application to improve performance and scalability.

·       We should emphasize practising Agile in the other remaining areas as well as team Velocity Calculation, Story Point calculation before sprint and plotting of Burndown Chart.

 

Learnings derived

 

Jot down all the activities towards your learning initiatives. You should point out how these learning will gradually help the project, customer and organization. Learning is a continuous process. Clearly mention that you always try to upgrade yourself by learning new things and practically implement them in real project scenarios. Here are some examples:

 

Certification, Training and Workshop attended

 

·       Sitecore 9.3 Developer Certification - Sitecore

·       SAFe Agilest Certification 

·       Design Thinking

·       Robotics Process Automation

·       Certification Program on Information Security

·       AI and ML - National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning (NPTEL)

 

To conclude, annual performance appraisal is an opportunity to grow in your organization and be awarded for your good work. After the successful display of your capabilities, you can request for more responsibility, accountability and involvement in other activities. If all goes well and you earn a good grade, you may also demand promotion, salary hike or perks. There are unlimited possibilities of growth but all things are dependent on how you portray yourself to the organization.