Professional Development for the SQL Server Technologist
This series of posts is dedicated to enhancing your soft skills. For many technologists, the day-to-day grind of work tends to keep us focused on the SQL Server part of work and causes us to overlook the Professional. While we, as technologists, spend the majority of our time honing hard, technology skills, but it’s important to remember that we are first and foremost employed to add value to the business processes of the organizations we work for. In this series I will cover a wide variety of topics, including soft skills like management, teamwork, communications, time management, and negotiations, as well as semi-soft skills like budgeting, project planning, project estimation, and so forth. And let’s face it, people who are good at the soft skills while also having strong technical skills often see better career growth and more opportunities than those of us who are purely technical.
To begin, I provide some homespun wisdom about effectiveness and efficiency in our jobs. These words are, of course, loaded with meaning and have produced multitudes of academic papers and big-name, New York Time best selling books. Everyone wants to be more effective and more efficient in their job. While I might bring up some of the more imaginative ideas and innovative concepts at other times in the series, I want to be direct with you today. Just as the simplest concept for financial well-being (“Spend less money than you earn!”) is sometimes the hardest to implement, so too the simplest concept for effectiveness and efficiency can be hard to make a workplace rule.
The first and most elementary rule of efficiency is to spend the majority of your time working on projects that are your forte. Management studies have shown that people aren’t just 50% or 80% more productive when working on what they’re best at, they’re actually 300%+ productive compared to activities where their skill is merely “satisfactory”. Here’s an example, if you’re really good at crunching code, do not spend lots of time attending and running meetings. Delegate that to another member of your time or find someone on your team who does enjoy that sort of thing. If you’re exceptionally good at performance tuning or designing databases into relational integrity works of art, do not spend all of your time writing requirements. You’re simply ruining your sweet spot for productivity.
Of course, many of us are on the prowl for a promotion or better job, which often require us to spend more time working on activities that are outside of our forte. I’ll address how to get back to your strong points when your job asks more of you in a future post.
Now, there’s a similar easy and elementary rule for achieving high degrees of effectiveness. The primary point to remember in being effective in your job is to focus your activities, at any given time, to only two or three things on which your performance will be judged. This might sounds simple and easy, but I’m constantly surprised how many people find it almost impossible to say “No” when more work comes their way (and this also applies to their personal life at the PTA, with the kids’ activities, with the church or volunteer organization, and so forth).
It’s very simple. If you cannot focus on successfully closing out a small set of activities, you’ll fail once you reach the point of being overwhelmed. Think of a juggler who seems quite competent juggling three balls. But when they try to juggle five balls, they’re lucky that they can keep one of them from falling to the ground. Plus, anyone watching is thinking “That person can’t juggle at all!” because they never saw the juggler successfully keeping three balls in the air. So, learn how much you can handle and then, when asked to do more, respond with “I’d love to take on this new project, but what of my existing projects has to be put on hold?” Taking on too many projects has the additional very detrimental effect of upsetting your work/life balance too, because most of us try to complete more projects by spending less time recuperating or with the family.
As with efficiency, we’ll come back in the future to specific techniques you can use to stay on task and limit the number of active projects you’re responsible for, even when management is asking you to take on more than you should.
In the meanwhile, think of other soft skill questions you might have and I’ll address them in future posts.
Why companies should upgrade their databases to SQL Server 2005.
Please forgive posting this old video. Many of the tips are still worth paying attention to since SQL Server 2005 features and technologies are the foundation of subsequent releases.
In today’s podcast, Kevin Kline talks about the difference between influence and authority, and why IT professionals need to work on their influence to succeed.
You can view this video in higher quality or your favorite portable formats at:
I’m sorry that I got this out a bit late, but there are still a city or two where you can join in on these great free, 1-day classes on Windows Azure provided by Neudesic. Atlanta, for example, is set for July 28th. You’ll get a deep dive program that will prepare you to deliver solutions on the Windows Azure Platform.
The region’s best Azure experts will teach you how to work in the cloud through training, discussion, review of real scenarios, and hands on labs. Snacks and drinks will be provided; however, you’re advised to bring an extension cord and to you to make your own lunch arrangements prior to the event.
Ok, I admit it. I’ve done about as good a job publicizing my monthly professional development column, Plays Well With Others, as NBC did when the transitioned Jay Leno back to the Tonight Show.
So I’m going to try to better, henceforth and forever more! Two entries ago, I talked about the The 8 Characteristics of Exceptional Leaders. This month, I’m drilling into the characteristic on that list that generated the most controversy in emails and messages – “Absolute Integrity”. Many people took issue with the concept that integrity can be learned, instead believing that integrity is innate, like a sense of humor or a dancer’s rhythm.
What do you think? Read the article here and weigh in with your opinion! (Be forewarned – the PASS website is free, but does require registration. And I encourage you to do so since there are many other great resources there to take advantage of.)
The MacGyver meme is making the rounds and I was kindly tagged by my buddy, Thomas LaRock ( blog | twitter) – that most famous SQLRockstar, who wisely chose to tag me early in the process, lest he receive another round of disciplining like the last time. I’ve also seen several other good MacGyver Moments from Aaron Bertrand (blog), David Stein also known as Made2Mentor ( blog | twitter ), and Denny Cherry also known as MrDenny (blog). I’m looking forward to reading the bloggers that they tagged to see what others in our community have cooked up. In case you haven’t heard, your MacGyver Moments are those times when you improvised an excellent solution to a problem using non-traditional materials, techniques, or tools – like the time I repaired my flux capacitor using bailing wire, chewing gum, the tears of Glenn Beck, and the sweat of a master ninja.
I'm a bit more like MacGruber than MacGyver
Necessity is the Mutha of Invention
Believe it or not, I’ve got a long history of doing things MacGyver style. To begin with, I grew up without two nickels to rub together. That means you have to improvise – a lot. Once I hit teenage years, I was constantly tinkering with all things mechanical and electrical trying to stretch their useful lifespan beyond any conception of “reasonable use”, much like my teenage dating experiences. For example, I once cobbled together garage workshop fan from the leftover parts of an electric pencil sharpener, a frame made of bailing wire (yes, bailing wire), solder, and handmade cardboard fan blades. Shamefully, it did not include any duct tape. But it worked great! I had to do that stuff all the time out of necessity, such as with my series of malfunctioning cars and dodgy electronics. Hey, my MacGyver experiences also taught me that admitting to owning a “Plymouth Horizon” is, when trying to impress the ladies, about the same as sporting a 4″ gravy stain on your “Howling Wolf” t-shirt.
Aaaah, the Plymouth – a vehicle truly designed somewhere between the third and fifth ring of Hades. I can’t even count the number of jury-rigged fixes I put into that thing. One that stands out clearly, because my friends used this to prank me on several occasions, was the repair to the broken door handle on the driver’s side. Since I couldn’t afford replacement parts, I used bailing wire (I could always count on you, my old friend) fixed to the inner locking mechanism and a key ring as a handle dangling invisibly from the bottom door sill. About a year after that (around 1986 or so), I discovered junk yards and was able to rip a barely used mechanism from a Dodge of the same body style for $3. I became pretty well known at those junk yards – I blame Chrysler. Quality was not job 1 in those days.
Creativity and Innovation can be like that. No buck teeth in my case.
Geek Creativity
Like my friend Brent Ozar, I played a lot of Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) growing up. I was always the “DM”, that is, the guy who administrated the game, while all my friends played characters on the adventure. But D&D, like many good products, was designed to suck the dollars right out of your product by producing an endless stream of new adventures to play and supplements to purchase. I, on the other hand, wasn’t gonna spend a dime of my money on that. So I created my own adventures (called modules). As I got better, I constructed campaigns (i.e a related sets of modules) and from that, a related set of campaigns into an entire Tolkien-like world (this is called a mileau) which I called Aquilonia. My buddies loved it and, realizing that bragging about geekness creates an inverse coolness effect, can brag that I won some contests at regional conventions for game design.
Code Creativity
Back in the day, I remember wondering if I should stop doing things differently than my buddies and peers. For example, we were assigned to write a program that would find the day of the week based on passing in any pre-Y2K date in one of my COBOL college courses. (No mocking please – COBOL was big back then). Everyone in the class, and I mean everyone, wrote very large programs that delivered the day of the week through very large (and, imo, cumbersome) IF-THEN-ELSE structures. My program had two elegant WHILE loops and thirty-eight lines of code based on the premise that our calendar repeats every 14 years and that all months contain at least 28 days and at most 31 days. I got an A+.
SQL Server Improvisation
Back when my IT shop had bragging privileges as one of the largest enterprise installations of Microsoft SQL Server (in the v6.0 and v6.5 days), we were faced with implementing some sort of way to do bi-directional replication. The product did a good job of standard transactional replication, but bi-directional replication was only possible through a major rewrite of the application. Instead, we cooked up a way to make it work – SQL Server would allow us do outward transactional replication as the transactions occurred. We were able to bring the data back by also enabling sync replication (which is non-transactional) every evening. Thus, we got bi-directional data flows without spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on third-party tools. (I must also give kudos to the team I worked with and who made this solution work, particularly Dwayne Seiber, who is still lead DBA there.)
Summary
Creativity, innovation, and improvisation are what you make of them. You must make the choice to pursue them. Yes, necessity often forces to seek out MacGyver moments. So does laziness in some cases. How many master developers do you know who’ll work very hard to fully conceptualize their program before starting to write it, saving time in the long run. Now that’s creative laziness! But MacGyver moments also stretch our abilities and call us to higher achievements.
The Modern Language Association hasn’t made up all the new rules yet to govern how one blogger should reverence, er, reference another in their blog posts. But they should! Let’s get that ball rolling for them.
I’m not exactly sure who started this format, but it’s my favorite. When writing a blog post in which you mention another person’s blog, let’s do it like this:
“blogger name (blog_hyperlink | twitter_hyperlink)”
So, we might read a blog post by my friend Kimberly Tripp (blog | twitter) that might look something like this:
“…the Scottish Terrier was so well known in early American society that as recently as the 1910′s, Manhattanite nannies instructed their young charges to be good else the “Scottish Terrier” would eat them, after a lengthy session of slobbery nuzzling and years of canine devotion. It is for this very reason that I’ve given my Scots/English husband, Paul Randal (blog |twitter), several variations of the nickname “Scottish terrier”, “scotty”, “snotty”, and “scotsnots” until such a time as needed for me to roll up the newspaper, give him a good spanking, and stick his nose in …”
Well, you get the point. And didja notice that I worked in not just one, but TWO entire examples of the blog-reference syntax?!? I can hardly believe my own craftiness. I went to university for four years to learn that y’know – and to learn how to funnel beer – but I digress.
The Call To Action
One thing I love about the SQL Server community is our very community-ness. (I also like the fact that you’ll let me invent stupid words on the fly without too much criticism.) So, let’s make the glob, {ah! damned dyslexia!} , blog reference business even easier by having you (yes, YOU) post your own blog & twitter links as a comment here.
I repeat – post a comment here containing your name, blog (with embedded hyperlink to your blog), and twitter (with embedded hyperlink to my twitter, er, YOUR twitter account).
I’ll then repost a brand new shiny article with a full compendium to everyone’s blog & twitter hyperlinks (except Brent Ozar’s (blog | twitter) ) which you can save to some obscure cranny of Outlook or WordPerfect to call up at a moments notice when the urge to both blog and reference other bloggers strikes you.
Thanks and looking forward to seeing your blog reference soon!
Those TPS reports are due at 3:30 pm sharp, Mister!
If you’ve ever dealt with a manager who questioned your every move, hijacked meetings, nit-picked over inconsequential details, or made you jump through endless hoops of administrivia, then you know what I’m writing about.
This article is part one of a two part series. Part one deals with identifying how and why managers become micro-managers. Part two, coming in the next issue of the PASS Community Connector, gives you strategies you can use to survive and even thrive in these scenarios, and also tells you when to cut-n-run.
There are already questions showing up on the post. So come join the fun. Post your own questions or experiences, and help the community grow.
January 1st, 2010 marked a very special day for me. It was the first time in the past ten years in which I had no official PASS responsibility at the HQ level. (I’m still serving in the local PASS chapter here in Nashville, along with the awesomeness that is DrSQL (blog | twitter) and the whackness that is Joe Webb (blog | twitter). We also have the irreplaceable Shelton Dickson and Roberto Lopez helping us out). I also intend to stay active as a speaker for PASS. I spoke at the PASS 2009 Summit, earning a top presenter spot in the Professional Development track, and plan to speak there in the future. And I’m also already booked for some upcoming Virtual Chapter meetings as well as local PASS chapters and SQL Saturdays.
10 Years on the Job Takes Its Toll
I have to admit that I’ve been surprised by the number of friends and acquaintances who’ve asked if I’ll miss it. Isn’t it obvious? Ten years of long hours with zero pay and a heavy burden on family time don’t rest easily on your shoulders. I’m sure that PASS’ first two presidents, Pam Smith and Guy Brown, can corroborate my story – except that they’ve taken a solemn oath never to speak words that includes the letters S, Q, and L in a single sentence. That makes it really hard to ask their opinion on much of anything these days. The heinous nervous twitch that spasmodically attacks their left and right eye, respectively, whenever they hear the words “Micro” or “Soft” uttered in the same conversation is also telling…
All joking aside, I’m honestly very happy to leave PASS in the hands of the next generation of leaders. For more a much more in-depth discussion about my years on the PASS board of directors, check out Brian Moran’s interview for SQL Server Magazine here. The enthusiasm and passion demonstrated by the young turks on the board of directors will keep the organization in stead for many years to come. I’m also very pleased with the new emphasis on community-connectedness (thank you Twitter!) and openness (thank you bloggers!) sweeping the community. It’s already produced much goodness within PASS, which I expect to see multiplied many times over in the future.
A PARTING BOW
I was amazed and surprised when, during the keynote of Day 3, Bill Graziano called me on to the stage along with el presidente Wayne Snyder. PASS did an online postings in a few locations. The PASS Volunteers page spotlights my award under the PASSion Awards section. Then, on the PASSion Award page, the award is the top featured article. This write-up includes a link to the interview with Brian that I mentioned earlier. Funny story – I’d been working in the PASS ready room on Day 2 of the Summit, feverishly trying to improve my slide decks. At the exact same time, Bill and the staff were also feverishly working on their slide deck a mere two seats away – of the presentation to come on Day 3!
I had hair when I started this job. Just sayin'...
Normally, I don’t care very much about how my slides look and would’ve caught Bill red handed in his sly surprise. But today was different because I’d seen two ominous portents of doom – a ferret consorting with a chicken (on Cartoon Network) and a woolly caterpillar crossing the threshold of the Sheraton Hotel and Convention Center lobby. My keen senses as an Oracle DBA kicked off an internal alarm that even 14 years of SQL Serverness could not suppress – eminent disaster at the hands of the demo gods was nigh. So once I got to the PASS ready room, I equipped myself with several diet Mountain Dews, my favorite MP3 tunes via massive ear-buds, and a bag of mixed nuts. Yes – I never knew, not even for a second, that they were talking about me. Several hours later, as if waking from a daze, I realized that I didn’t have any slide decks with demos. Clearly, Graziano had stronger juju than I. Next time, I’ll directly divine the future using turtledove entrails – as all good Oracle DBAs are trained to do – rather than rely on those pathetic woolly caterpillars like MS-Access developers recommend. [All elements of the preceding story concerning divination are a blatant lie.] But I digress…
At the Day 3 keynote, Bill and Wayne surprised me by calling me to the stage and presenting me with the biggest award I’d ever personally seen. I was gobsmacked. On top of that, the attendees gave me a standing ovation for receiving the “Lifetime Passion Award” (no relation to Lifetime “TV for Women”). Again, I was taken aback. Wayne had, evidently, intended on giving me the mic to say a few words. But because he was a bit choked up, he left the stage a bit earlier than he meant and never handed the mic to me. Good thing too – I would’ve blubbered like a baby.
A Special Word of Thanks
Honestly, I can’t thank you enough for your kindness as a community. I never got into PASS for any form of praise or profit. To have a hand in the making of something bigger than me which reflected my own values was all I ever hoped to achieve. And thank you again to all the bloggers who had a kind word about the award as well:
Brian Egler at Network World also mentioned it here.
This year was also a great year for photoslikethese. If you know of any other mentions about the award that day back in November 2009, please post a comment here.
