SMART Goals for Software Engineers
5th Feb 2019
One of the big challenges I have found going into a management role is finding ways to help the people in my team develop their skills and their career.
I have done some research and have collated some of my favourite examples.
Design Goals
I want all of these goals to conform to the SMART criteria.
S - Specific
These goals must be clear and well defined. We all need to understand when the goal is achieved.
M - Measurable
I need to be able to pull some sort of metric from the goal which is not ambiguous.
A - Agreed Upon
I want to remain in-line with our agile priciples of personal ownership and that should include goals.
R - Realistic
Our primary aim is to see this person succeed! So the goal must be achievable in the allotted time.
T - Time Based
There must be a point in time when we can review and assess whether this goal has been completed.
Goal Categories
Technical Skills
Code Kata
Complete X number of code katas each month.
Goal completion:
- Document the problem and your solution such that it can be referenced.
Answer Questions on a Technical Forum
Answer X number of questions on Stack Overflow each month.
Goal completion:
- Document which ones you have answered.
Read Blogs
Read X number of blog posts on a particular subject each week.
Goal completion:
- An article of your own on the subject
- A lightning talk (10 minutes) to the team
Proof of concept
Write a proof of concept to solve an area on the current team's challenge board. Complete this goal by:
Goal completion:
- Demo the proof of concept to the team
Bus Factor -1
Ask a developer from another team to teach you an area of our codebase you have never touched.
Goal completion:
- A lightning talk (10 minutes) to the team on that feature
Coverage
Increase the code coverage on a module by X%.
Goal completion:
- Methods increased by X%
- Conditionals increased by X%
Documentation
Take X number of badly (or wrongly) documented README.md files and document them correctly.
Goal completion:
- Show X number of documented README on github.
Soft Skills
Mentoring
Log X hours of time mentoring another developer each week.
Goal completion:
- A log showing the length of time, the other developer and the general skills you covered
Interviewer
Help us hire the next ace engineer by doing X number of stage 1 telephone interviews for the next hire.
Goal completion:
- Document the people you interviewed on the telephone
Company Blogger
Write a well researched article for the company blog on a feature we have just released or that is on the roadmap.
Goal completion:
- Published blog article
References
I have taken inspiration from the following places:
Photo by Ray Hennessy on Unsplash