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Submitted by itilimp on
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I should preface this with I haven't yet listened to the cast, but am about to. I just want to share the reasons I'm looking forward to it - I'll try not to rant.

Previously I've tended to only set aside a few hours about a week before my review, which compared to my colleagues (and line manager) who say they do no preparation at all because they believe they are a waste of time (they are viewed as a paper exercise for personnel and no more). So reading that 12 weeks is needed was a bit of a shock to my system!

Especially given the circumstances surrounding my last review. My manager booked the appointment in my diary which conflicted with another one 2 days before the date. I asked for it to be rescheduled and went to my previously planned appointment.

Imagine my shock when they came into the room and pulled me out for my appraisal. I reminded them that I had asked for it to be rescheduled (partly due to the previous appointment and also needing time to prepare) and they said there was no need and off we went. Suffice to say I was pretty furious and in completely the wrong mindset.

So I thought I'd get ahead of the game, and start preparing now. Only I just called personnel and found that we should have started the appointments for our interim appraisals which need to be completed by the end of the month, and my manager hasn't even mentioned this to the team yet!

I may not have 12 weeks, (and as I'm not a manager so I don't have team one-on-ones, wait, I don't have boss one-on-ones either (not for want of asking I might add!) but I'm sure this will help me be as prepared as I can be given the timescale and expectation of no preparation.

One final point, my manager said in the last interim that he was glad I hadn't had time to prepare as it meant a shorter appraisal! *sighs*

Mark's picture
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Will be interested in your comments.

Your boss isn't doing his job.

Mark

regas14's picture
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itilimp -

I have had a very recent experience similar to your circumstances. Allow me to share with you how well it went because of the MT "Preparing for your Review" guidelines.

Due to the fact that HR was reviewing the review process my six-month appraisal (which is only done on new employees while all others have annual reviews) had been postponed indefinitely back in September. Because I was interested in where I was relative to my goals and objectives and because I was not getting a whole lot of feedback, I went ahead with the MT prescription. With only six months of performance to review, the volume of documents, notes and e-mails less than for most and I was able to complete the process in 3 or 4 weeks. I first completed this process at the beginning of September and decided that I could keep the process manageable by reviewing it each quarter.

Fast forward to the beginning of this week. On monday, my boss got a message from HR asking why he had not done a six-month review on me. He scheduled 30 minutes for a review on Wednesday. Having done a good deal of homework just a month earlier, all I needed to do was review and update and pull out a couple of documents (which I now save in a "Performance" folder). I was able to provide my manager with a summary document and offer supporting documents on Tuesday. Lo and behold on Wednesday my review had much of the same language and metrics I had submitted.

Needless to say, my performance was appraised as exemplary. That is in large part thanks to the MT performance appraisal approach and to the effectiveness I've been able to develop by considering and applying what I've learned in other casts.

It would be interesting to aggregate performance appraisal results from MT members. Based on the commitment, passion and comments on this board, I predict the scores would be far above average!

Thanks again Michael & Mark.

G.R.

itilimp's picture
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To Mark: I know, but in their defense they are trying to do their job as well as pick up the responsibilities of IT manager post that doesn't currently exist (made redundant) :( They just went for the IT manager job (that I'd considered but didn't apply for as I want a different role) and didn't get it. Looks like they will be looking for external candidates.

To GR,

Thank you for sharing your experience with me. That is exactly what I hope to emulate. Having listened to the cast in full now I think that it won't take me as long due to the lack of one on ones etc. Mind you, I'm sure I could easily replace that 30 minutes with another e-mail session ;)

I really like your idea of reviewing the documents you've assembled on a quarterly basis. I may see if I can achieve that (although first I have to get through the first one!).