Self-Assessment

Recently, we were filling in our forms for the end of year performance reviews. We have tried all kinds in the past, but have settled on something simplistic in recent years. It’s basically structured around open questions of “what went well?”, “what didn’t go well?”, “What have you learned?”, “What would you like to learn?”. 

Since we had already just evaluated ourself, it was  a surprise to get an email directly from the CTO wanting us to evaluate ourselves.

Hope you are well. 

We are currently conducting an assessment exercise across our Portfolio to establish our strengths and areas for improvement, with the goal of growing our capability as a department and to drive to our long term vision of moving to development on our new product.

To facilitate this process, we have developed an assessment questionnaire that will help us understand your capabilities and your career trajectory.

Could you please complete this form by selecting the option that best reflects your current capability or skill.  

It’s an unexpected email, states urgency, and contains a suspicious link. All the hallmarks of a phishing email. I waited for a colleague to click the link before clicking mine. Given that it asks similar questions to what is on our performance review, as well as many others that are specific for our job role; why wouldn’t they just standardise the review process in order to get the information?

Clicking the link loads up a Microsoft form with Employee ID and Name filled in with editable fields but the question says “Please do not change this”. My name had double spaces in it which was really annoying. What would happen if I did correct it? Does Microsoft Forms not allow you to have non-editable fields? Seems a weird limitation regardless.

The questions were labelled with the following categories:

Delivery, Code Quality, Problem Solving, Accountability, Technical Proficiency, Domain Proficiency, Cloud Knowledge, New Gen Tech Stack Proficiency, Joined Up, Process and Communication, Innovation. 

I really didn’t like the way the questions were written. There are 5 answers labelled A-E, but C is often written to sound like a brilliant option when you would expect that to be average. B and A just sound like behaviour reserved for the Architects/Engineering Managers/Principal Developers.

Given that the answers just seem to link directly to your job role, then it reminded me of those online quizzes where it is gonna decide what TV Character/Superhero you are, but you can easily bias your answers because you can see exactly where it is going. In this case, this assessment just seems like it is gonna rank you Architect, Expert, Senior, Junior based on your answers.

Some of the wording for the lowest answers seem like a strange thing to admit.

“Only engages in innovation efforts when directly instructed, showing a complete lack of accountability. “

Why would you admit to showing a complete lack of accountability? Most people probably don’t “innovate” but selecting an answer with “showing a complete lack of accountability” seems crazy.

So given that some answers are never gonna be selected because it’s a difficult thing to admit, and given some answers were clearly based on your job description; then people would just select answers based on what they SHOULD be doing, rather than what they ACTUALLY do. So therefore, it’s a pretty pointless survey. Also there is bias that it was given during the review period so people would suspect it would be used to decide pay-rises and promotions rather than just for some team reshuffle. 

This one on Code Quality is weird because B and C seem similar in standard, but then when you read D, it sounds like you admit you are an incompetent Software Developer.

Code Quality 
(cq.a) Established as code guru and plays a key role in shaping optimal code quality in the team through effective reviews, acting on insights from tools, identifying and resolving inefficiencies in the software and process. 
(cq.b) Effectively uses insights from tools like Sonarcloud and influences team quality positively by enforcing standards and showing an upward trend of improved quality and reduced rework. 
(cq.c) Upholds the highest standards of unit testing, coding practices, and software quality in self-delivery and ensuring the same from the team through effective code reviews. 
(cq.d) Rarely identifies refactoring opportunities, misses critical issues in code reviews, and struggles to positively influence the team's approach to code quality. 
(cq.e) Engages minimally in code reviews, allowing issues to slip through; unit tests are skipped and/or yet to begin influencing the code quality of the team. 

This one seems applicable to only the top people, or ones that love the limelight and want attention from the managers.

Joined-up
(ju.a) Designs personalised learning paths for team members to ensure comprehensive skill development. 
(ju.b) Takes ownership of training needs, seeking opportunities for personal growth. Takes the initiative to identify advanced training opportunities for skill enhancement. 
(ju.c) Demonstrate robust team communication, encourage team to contribute in weekly Lunch and Learn sessions, actively recognising peers, support juniors wherever needed. Be active in recruitment. 
(ju.d) While excelling as an individual contributor, there is an opportunity to engage more with team members by sharing ideas, seeking input, recognition and offering support in team/organisation initiatives 
(ju.e) Need to start taking on a mentoring role by sharing knowledge, providing guidance, and offering constructive feedback to the juniors help them grow and succeed. 

I think it is difficult to make meaningful surveys or assessments, but you need to put some thought into the value, and the accuracy of the results.