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November 27, 2005
A Personal Retrospective
The hour is close at hand.
The current project is drawing to a close (for me).
A new project beckons.
As is typical for me, my next project (even thought it's for the same client) is going to be vastly different than my current one. In terms of length, budget, number of people, technology stack and process, the new one is looking like a much simpler beastie than the one I've been working on for the better part of this year.
As is also somewhat typical, I'm conducting a brief personal retrospective as my time draws near...
In no particular order:
- Did I enjoy the overall experience? If not, why not?
- Am I leaving the project like a convict making a jailbreak, or someone reluctantly coming to the end of a great holiday?
- What would I do differently had I been running the project?
- Can I take pride in the code/design/tests/documentation I was responsible for?
- How did I conduct myself as a consultant? What are the areas I can improve on in that space?
- What knowledge did I acquire from the project? Either from positive reinforcement or negative.
- In retrospect, what questions should I have asked which would have made my life easier on the project?
- Still in retrospect, what decisions should I have made differently?
- Where does this project fit in my overall list of achievements thus far? Is it prime resume fodder? Or something to be buried between other highlights?
- Did I build good relationships with my fellow workers and those indirectly connected to my work. If not, why not and how can I improve on this?
Perhaps this will be the first project where I actually record my answers to these questions? I'd love to have a historical collection of my post-project reflections to look back on at the start/end of each successive project.
Posted by Andy Marks at 07:30 PM | Comments (0)