My Review
So the format was interesting. I realized at the end that I talked for the majority of the time. They asked me questions ranging from "What do you feel is your greatest accomplishment in the past year /___months" to "what are your personal goals for the next ___ months" and things like that. I usually had pretty involved answers to the things that they were asking and then they would respond with their perspectives. The usual kind of follow-up questions were along the lines of "What do you think was responsible for making you feel like that?" or "What do you think needs to be done in order for you to achieve something like that again".
There were quite a few questions focused on the company itself. I was pretty eager to give my opinion on what I think needs to change at the company in order for things to move forward. The biggest topic that I had to talk about in that respect was about process. I really think the lack of a defined process has hurt the company. 1st Playable is starting to do things with future projects in mind - which means designing systems that are non game-specific and can be re-used again in the future. This is fantastic and I wish we could only push that even further.
At the end of the review Jeb and Colin were essentially done... but I wasn't! I hadn't gotten the information that I was looking for yet. I asked them to give me their perspectives on working with me. They both had extremely positive things to say.
Jeb said: I seem eager to learn. Most importantly... towards the end of my first project (For those that didn't know- it was a high stress project that went *FAR* beyond its intended deadline) when everybody was pretty much going insane, I was still in control and reliable.
Colin: I mentioned that lately the company has been moving towards doing things with future projects in mind. Colin has the opinion that I've been a major factor in this company-wide shift. He also said that one of the things that he admires most about me is that I'm not afraid to ask questions.
Overall, I felt that it was a pretty good review. They asked me for my feedback since I was the first person to go through the review process. I said that I liked it for the most part. Although, I feel that there could have been a little more critique. Hearing that you're fantastic is great and all - but it doesn't give you a lot of room to grow.
Now I just need to start nagging Jeb and Colin to start giving reviews everyone else in the company. I don't want it to be this thing that was just done for me. I want the process to start getting applied to everyone. At the same time, I have to start pushing for the company to adopt a process. *Any* process. Hopefully, it'll be Scrum.
Update: I forgot to mention that I was talking to Colin about this in more detail tonight. I mentioned to him that I had been thinking about leaving but had - I think - decided to stay. His opinion was that even if I am planning on leaving, staying for another year would be extremely beneficial. He also said that by then, he believes that I'll be in the position to have a lead programmer position. That gives me yet another reason to stay.
There were quite a few questions focused on the company itself. I was pretty eager to give my opinion on what I think needs to change at the company in order for things to move forward. The biggest topic that I had to talk about in that respect was about process. I really think the lack of a defined process has hurt the company. 1st Playable is starting to do things with future projects in mind - which means designing systems that are non game-specific and can be re-used again in the future. This is fantastic and I wish we could only push that even further.
At the end of the review Jeb and Colin were essentially done... but I wasn't! I hadn't gotten the information that I was looking for yet. I asked them to give me their perspectives on working with me. They both had extremely positive things to say.
Jeb said: I seem eager to learn. Most importantly... towards the end of my first project (For those that didn't know- it was a high stress project that went *FAR* beyond its intended deadline) when everybody was pretty much going insane, I was still in control and reliable.
Colin: I mentioned that lately the company has been moving towards doing things with future projects in mind. Colin has the opinion that I've been a major factor in this company-wide shift. He also said that one of the things that he admires most about me is that I'm not afraid to ask questions.
Overall, I felt that it was a pretty good review. They asked me for my feedback since I was the first person to go through the review process. I said that I liked it for the most part. Although, I feel that there could have been a little more critique. Hearing that you're fantastic is great and all - but it doesn't give you a lot of room to grow.
Now I just need to start nagging Jeb and Colin to start giving reviews everyone else in the company. I don't want it to be this thing that was just done for me. I want the process to start getting applied to everyone. At the same time, I have to start pushing for the company to adopt a process. *Any* process. Hopefully, it'll be Scrum.
Update: I forgot to mention that I was talking to Colin about this in more detail tonight. I mentioned to him that I had been thinking about leaving but had - I think - decided to stay. His opinion was that even if I am planning on leaving, staying for another year would be extremely beneficial. He also said that by then, he believes that I'll be in the position to have a lead programmer position. That gives me yet another reason to stay.