Re: Performance Appraisal Dilemma

["Michele Marques" <mmarques -at- cms400 -dot- com>]

Steven Pumphrey asks how he can accomplish a writing 
assignment when he doesn't see the purpose. Think of this as a 
way to expand your range of writing! If you can sell yourself by their 
pre-defined (albeit, silly) "values-in-action", you might be better 
prepared to write documents for marketing, or at least to write a 
resume that targets the points mentioned in the job ad.

My lengthy suggestions on how to accomplish this specific task 
follow Steven's assignment. 

> I need to write my Performance Appraisal for my boss.  The appraisal needs
> to contain bullet points of what I did and how I did it.  The "how I did it"
> part is supposed to come from our predetermined list of "Values-in-Action".
> These "values" include:
> 
> Executing with quality
> Driving creativity into everything we do
> Sharing with others
> Integrity, trust, and respect
> Passion to succeed

My recommendation is not to use the paragraphs as supplied. 
Here is how I suggest you come up with what they are asking for:

(1) Start with your list of tasks accomplished.
(2) Look at the list below for how to apply those bullet point 
"Values-in-Action" to your tasks:
      * Executing with quality: Did you do a better job than required?
         (e.g., when updating a document you also made it easier
          to use and visually more attractive than the previous version)
          Did you come up with a new process to do something 
          better?  (e.g., you came up with macros to standardize 
          some tasks, resulting in more consistent quality)

       * Driving creativity into everything we do: Did you come up with
         a new or different way of doing (or presenting) something? 
         (e.g., you came up with the creative solution of using macros
          for something)

       *Sharing with others: Did you share information or methods
         with others in your company? (e.g., did you share these
         macros with others on your team, did you show others how
         to create their own macros?)

       *Integrity, trust, respect: Does anything you do show how you
         trusted or respected others? (e.g., you turned to others for
         advice or to get consensus, you delegated tasks) or show 
         how you are trusted and respected (important projects were
         delegated to you)

         *Passion to succeed: Did you work beyond what was  
           required? Did you persevere instead of giving up? (e.g., 
          you debugged the macros instead of going back to the
          old/easy way)

 (3) Below each task apply a bullet point for each example of 
something you did on that task that applies to those values, as 
explained above. Either start each bullet point with the value (e.g., 
Passion to succeed: stayed after hours to debug macros) or end 
each bullet point with the value in parentheses.

(4) Laugh at this point-haired task and be glad it's over! But don't 
forget to hang onto the document, for when you want bullet points 
for your resume to show "team-work", "creativity", etc.

Good luck! 



-------------------------------------------------------
Michele Marques
Lead Technical Communicator, CMS Manufacturing Systems
mmarques -at- cms400 -dot- com        
905-477-4499 x280