ITInnerCircle.com

Ok..you got the bad news. Boss is not happy with your performance. He has put you on PIP(Performance Improvement Plan) What do you do now?

1. Tell your wife(if you are married) that you have been put on a performance Improvement Plan. Its important that your family knows your professional situation. Its important that you have a soul mate to talk and de-stress
2. Don’t rationalize the situation with your boss’s boss. You will not hear a different tune. Chances are he or she will never show any compassion towards you.
3. Don’t discuss or bad mouth your boss in the cafeteria or break rooms. Its not worth it. At the end of the day your best friends may be so frightened with what has happened to you that they will voluntarily carry information to the management about you.
4. Try to become objective when speaking to the boss. Metodically explain to him on what you have done. Just simply explain what circumstances lead to you missing your deadlines on the tasks provided this problem surfaced due to some direct act of yours. If boss never liked you from the very beginning, its not worth talking to him in the first place.
5. The Judgement is already made. The verdict is yet to be given. If you have 30 days or 45 days to perform and pull yourself out of the PIP program then make sure you sign up for projects that at the end of the day will be conducive for your success. The entire management has planned your exit. You may not after change their opinion.
6. Start calling friends and start sending out your resumes. Subscribe to FuckedCompany.com and chill out

Easier said than done but don’t get caught up with this emotionally. You are certainly not wanted and that is why you have been given a warning. If there is a package just take it and exit the company with grace.

Remember this. No company is good or bad. Its all about the people.

People never quit companies. People quit people.

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About two weeks ago I had a rare honor of attending a SCRUM Mater training that Ken Schwaber presented at a company that I consult with here in the Silicon Valley.

During one of the breaks I had a small discussion with Ken about the reach of SCRUM and its widespread use in other industries outside software development and IT.

Now if you are new to Agile method of software development and your standard water fall methodology is not effective anymore, I suggest you look into SCRUM.

I am not a SCRUM master by any means and have no direct knowledge to guide you, but certainly can tell you that the worlds three of the top five IT companies are using SCRUM.

Here a video where Ken talks to the Google’s development team.

If you have any direct questions on SCRUM please post them in the comments section and I will have one of the SCRUM masters respond to you

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Success for IT Professionals has many meanings. For some its all about titles for some its a small cap award and for some its just their boss mentioning their name in the all hands meeting( they have to see their name on the power point slide)

In my last company we used to joke around..if you are getting any award in the quarterly all hands meeting..chances are you will not be in the company the following quarter.

After several years of experimenting I have to come to realize that at the end of the day all that matters is “Are You On The Winning Team”

By winning team I mean are you on the project that successfully got deployed got tremendous visibility and it directly contributed to your boss’s success.

In my last IT role I experimented with a cool concept. I volunteered to be on every project that IT Applications team signed up to deliver. Usually in those days most of my colleagues had either 50% allocation( limited to work on two projects) or 100% ( only to one project). My strategy was even if I contribute 1% to any project’s success, my name will appear on the scene and I will be rewarded.

For many projects, as a token of appreciation I ended up getting $20 American Gift Cards from my Boss.

So my message to you..don’t get caught up with the notion that you have no bandwidth to work across multiple projects. The chances are you are working 60hrs a week anyway with your current projects. Sign up for more and you will be rewarded for things that you hardly put anytime or emotions into.

Don’t put all the eggs in one basket.

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