Performance Evaluation - Scope, Complexity and Impact

During interview or performance review, we often need to cablibrate one person’s story with another person’s story. In many ways our careers and our life, are nothing but stages to allow us to build stories. We are the story builders, storytellers and the protagonists of the stories at the same time. But how do we evaluate a story in career context? I use three elements: scope, complexity and impact. 1. Scope. Scope is about breath. Scope can be further divided into the scope of time and the scope of space. For examples, a project lasted 6 months has more scope than the project lasted 2 weeks, but less scope than the project lasted 2 years. That is the scope of time; A project that needs to integrate 100+ AWS services has more scope than a project that only needs to integrate with S3, that is the scope of space. 2. Complexity. Complexity is about technical depth. It measures the difficulty and intricacy of the problem you are solving. A project that just needs to put an object into S3 using AWS SDK has less depth than the project that needs to handle distributed transactions across three heterogeneous databases. 3. Impact. Impact is about the value delivered to customers and stakeholders. A project that serves 1MM customers has more impact than the project that serves 10 customers. Impact needs to be quantified to make an impression on listeners. If your project tries to reduce the latency of an API, how much reduction is achieved, from X to Y, what is X and Y? By what percentage, on which percentile? P90, P99? Why do you choose the percentile? And most importantly, why does it matter to your customers? Why should they be delighted by your delivery? So there you go, the secret of performance evaluation: scope, complexity and impact. If you are being asked about “the most impressive/challenging/memorable project” you delivered, remember to use the three elements to structure your story. And don’t forget, it has to be your story, your journey, your struggle, agony and triumph. The most personal story is also the most universal one that touches listeners’ heart. “No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as any manner of thy friends or of thine own were; any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind. And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.” - John Done