Advertising

Of course, it matters little to have ten thousand successes if the decision makers don't know about it. Consequently, like anything else in the business world, if you want positive results, you have to do a little advertising. Care must be taken in how you go about it, however. You don't want to be one of those obsequious little weasels that pander after a manager constantly recounting the fact that you did something right. Such creatures garner no respect. To give you an idea of a more subtle approach, consider the following example.

Let's say that you were tasked with writing a small, simple, dialog based, an affair that should only take around a week. First, do your homework. Fire up a spreadsheet and do your estimating, in quarter hour granularity as I've discussed in the past. Next, having summarized the tiny detail into somewhat larger modules, take any meetings, time off or other work distractions into account and project dates for each module. Yes, it's a small, brainless little app, but anything can be broken down into modules. If you're looking at a week's worth of work, you should be able to come up with at least 5 modules, one for each day.

Now, print that spreadsheet out, casually toss it on the manager's desk on your way past, saying, "By the way, I'm working on that app you wanted and here's the timeline and milestones. I'll let you know when it's done." Then keep walking. You don't want to make a big deal out of it.

As you complete your each task, pay attention to how long it took you, and punch that number into the spreadsheet, right then and there. Tedious, perhaps, but you have larger goals in mind, so it's worth it. Now, at any point in the week when the manager walks by and says, "Hey, how's that app coming?" (and you know they will), you quickly fire up the spreadsheet from the shortcut you keep on the desktop and say, "Right on track. As you can see, I've hit the milestones for Monday and Tuesday, and so far today I'm right on schedule for completing on time." When you've finished the project on time and per your own schedule, drop off a printout of the updated spreadsheet on his desk in the same casual manner, saying, "Here's the information on the project I just completed. Thought the data would be useful to you. Gotta run, got things to do…"

Regardless of whether it's coding projects or accomplishing any task under the sun, find a way to break it down, project it, track it and show not just an overall success, but a history of successes. Additionally, always be on the lookout for things you can provide or do that will bolster your manager's position, and then do it quietly in the background without anyone knowing. Once it's done, again hand off the benefits to your manager in a casual, "oh, by the way, here's just a little thing that I thought would be useful to you" kind of manner, including the documentation of incremental successes that you encountered while making it happen.

By not making a big deal out of any particular incident, you don't look like a weasel and you don't raise any defensive flags in his mind that you've done something and now he owes you. Instead, you're building an image, one of a worker that he can trust and count on, and one who's watching his back even when he doesn't realize it. Keep that word in your mind - image. That's what your priority is.