How to Track Your Results for Career Growth and Reviews

Tracking Projects for Career Management

• 📌 Projects are defined as any outcome requiring more than two actions, including tasks like preparing annual meetings or documenting processes.
• 💡 Tracking projects is crucial because they often fall outside formal job descriptions or annual goals, leading to forgotten accomplishments.
• 📝 When tracking projects, record the title, a detailed description, and the outcomes (on time, on budget, in scope).
• 🚀 Capturing project details helps in interviews by providing concrete examples and improving fluency when describing past work.

Measuring Project and Job Outcomes

• 🎯 Beyond deadline, budget, and scope, track other key outcomes such as quotas met, customer service levels, money saved/made, and time saved.
• 📊 A helpful backward-thinking approach is to identify what actions would lead to being fired to understand the minimum required performance.
• 🛠️ Key behaviors that drive organizational success include words, tone, facial expressions, body language, and work product (quantity, quality, timeliness, accuracy, documentation).
• ✅ Even seemingly small accomplishments, like hitting numerous deadlines throughout the year, add up and should be tracked.

Tracking Team Results and Individual Contributions

• 🤝 While collaboration is essential, individual contributions must be clearly identified for resumes, annual reviews, and career advancement.
• ⚠️ Using phrases like "collaborated upon" or "contributed to" can weaken a resume, as hiring managers need to understand your specific impact.
• 🔍 Detailed tracking of your specific tasks within a project (e.g., finding caterers, sending invitations, reviewing bills) demonstrates ownership and drives outcomes.
• 📈 Managers should abstract and aggregate their team's accomplishments to demonstrate their leadership and organizational impact, not just their individual tasks.

The Importance of Granular Tracking

• 🗓️ Tracking results granularly, day-to-day and week-to-week, makes preparing for self-reviews and career management documents significantly easier.
• 🧠 Without detailed tracking, individuals may feel they had a good year but cannot articulate their contributions, leading to a "hollow feeling" during reviews or job transitions.
• ⏳ It's better to have too much information and discard what's unnecessary than to lack crucial details when needed for career advancement.
• 🚀 This consistent tracking is vital for managing your career effectively, especially in the 21st century where individuals are responsible for their own career development.