Get Ahead with Launchy

Towards the end of last year, everyone at work went through the company’s annual performance review process. Whilst this isn’t my first job, it was the first time I have been through a formal performance review. I haven’t had any feedback since my review (that should be coming sometime this week), I have already learned a couple of things that may help the process along next time around.

At the start of each review period, we are required to document our personal objectives, along with a job description and anything else we want to be measured against at the performance review. These objectives then form a benchmark against which we are rated. In my case, this rating depends directly on input from to key people, myself and my line manager.

It goes without saying that the first step to getting a good review is to actually do good work. Personally I like to try and leave a job knowing that my employer or manager would ask me to come back again. This isn’t always the easiest of things to achieve, but I like to think of it as a reasonable goal. After all, if your manager is unlikely to ask you back, they are unlikely to be singing your praises come review time.

So, assuming your work is up to scratch and you are achieving what is expected, how do you go about making sure people notice you? One way is to make sure everyone knows every time you do something praiseworthy. There are those who love to tell everyone how good they are. However, every time they find a way to shave half a penny off the photocopying budget, they may get a pat on the back, or even a round of applause but - through no fault of their own - people will forget. And come review time, if your manager can’t remember what it was that made you stand out, they won’t be able to justify that glowing review you so deserve. He/she needs evidence to support their praise of you.

At first, I was somewhat apprehensive about the review process. I don’t like to sing my own praises, preferring instead to let my work speak for itself. At first this may seem like a disadvantage when it comes to a performance review but, in reality, it isn’t. Let me explain why.

I realised that as long as I was able to gather the evidence I needed to show that others thought highly of my work, I would be on the right track. My approach has been to take a note every time someone comments on the work I do. This way, I can present my manager with all the evidence he needs to give me the review I deserve and don’t have to let my performance rating depend on his/her memory. And best of all, all the evidence I give has come from those who have benefited directly from my work. To give you an example: rather than writing,

“I took the initiative and cancelled a room booking early to ensure the client was not faced with an unnecessary cancellation charge.”

I would write,

“Cancelled room booking without incurring cancellation charge. “Bill, thanks for being so pro-active in sorting this out. Much appreciated. - Joe Blogs, Project Manager, 22 Dec 08.”

The difference between these should be obvious. Adding the personal touch gives the achievement more weight. It shows that that the work was appreciated by someone else and this adds credibility. The difficulty is recording all these quotes such that they are available to you at review time. I have heard a number of suggestions from emailing yourself with details of feedback, or keeping a word document to record things to bring up during your review. For me though, both these approaches are too cumbersome. Often, feedback is verbal and not written. If it can’t be captured immediately you will put it off to later. And we all know that putting something off till later very often means it won’t get done. So, here is my approach.

I have created a text file for each of our performance criteria. For example:

Feedback.txt
CoachingOthers.txt
PersonalDevelopment.txt
BusinessImprovement.txt

For each of these I have created an associated batch file which appends a string of text, along with the date and time, to the end of the file. I then use Launchy, an application launcher for Windows, to run this batch file, adding my comments to the appropriate text file. Sounds confusing doesn’t it, but have a look at the process with screenshots.

Whenever I need to capture something which might help my review I press “Alt + Space”. This brings up the Launchy window which allows me to run any application on my computer.

I start typing the name of a batch file representing the appropriate performance criteria, in this case “feedback”.

Launchy identifies the batch file after only a few characters.

Pressing “Tab” moves the cursor to the text input field.

Type your performance feedback into the text entry box.

Keep your entry short and simple. Include important details such as who gave you the feedback and the position they held at the time. Details like this may seem obvious but you can almost guarantee that you will forget them in six months time.

When I’m done I simply hit “Enter” and relax, safe in the knowledge that I have one more piece of evidence to support me come my next review. An example of how this is stored is below.

The key to the above process is being able to capture feedback as and when you receive it. It shouldn’t be a process that you have to think about. I use Launchy to start most of my applications and so using it to capture feedback fits nicely into my workflow. It works for me, and is gradually becoming second nature, but I’d love to know what you think. Is your performance review process wildly different? Do you have different ways of capturing the feedback you need to support your review? Please share your stories in the comments.

boot-note: Those of you lucky enough to be able to use a Mac at work, try Quicksilver instead of Launchy. Quicksilver is a far superior (in looks and functionality) version of Launchy. And finally, if anyone would like the batch files I use to append text to a file, leave a comment and I’ll post them here.

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