T-SQL Tuesday #97 – Setting Learning Goals for 2018

T-SQL Tuesday

T-SQL TuesdayThis month’s T-SQL Tuesday blog is brought to us by Malathi Mahadevan (b | t) and this month topic is about setting our learning goals for 2018.  I have for the last 5 (except for last year) years set learning goals for the year after attending a session at PASS Summit in 2012 given by Andy Waren (b | t) on called Building a Professional Development Plan.  I think the way Andy presented this session was invaluable to me advancing my career and developing skills I didn’t have a time.

Professional Development Plan

Andy describes yourself as a business that you have to invest time, not your company, even though it is nice if they do so.  You have to take the initiative to learn with or without the finances and time of your company. I’ve learned from a number of sources on goal setting is that you cannot achieve them if you don’t set them and come up with a plan to meet them.  You plan should include things like formal training (if you can afford it), other training (virtual groups from PASS and GroupBy or reading blogs), and projects (hands-on learning). So like any goal you should set milestones and tasks to reach the goals.

Before you launch into setting a learning goal it’s important to ask yourself some questions:

  1. What will most help you at your current job (assuming you want to stay at it)?
  2. What will most help keep your skills marketable (think about the future)?
  3. Are the skills you learning to narrow and siloing into an area that is not viable?

Next, you need to determine the amount of time you have to invest in learning.  Remember time is not free, so you have to be realistic. Below is table I jotted down from Andy’s session on the number of hours you invest and what it means towards your goal.  So we can see we need to invest more than 50 hours during the year to just gain one skill but anything beyond that requires a serious investment in time. If you can’t attend formal training and have to put together a training schedule together yourself it because even more difficult.

0-20 hours No goal, no plan–Just work
21-50 hours Standard Maintenance
51-100 hours Slow growth, adding one skill
101-200 hours Serious investment
200+ hours Different focus / Hyper Growth

 

Different things that can be included in your Professional Development Plan (PDP) are:

  1. Networking, you should always try to meet three new people at each event or training.
  2. Writing / Communication skills
  3. Leadership / Management training
  4. Formal Education
  5. Teaching / Presenting
  6. Professional Organizations / Events

Andy suggested coming up a budget as to how much you can spend as well on training.  And lastly putting all this information in a spreadsheet and tracking your progress. If anybody is interested in seeing a sample of mine let me know I’ll be putting mine together over the next few weeks with details filled in.

What I Want to Learn

Now back to answering the questions specifically asked in Mala’s T-SQL Tuesday Post.  In 2018, I want to learn Linux again (it’s been 20 years and very light usage of it).  Our company will more than likely go Linux at some point, so I want to have the skillsets I’ve developed for Windows in Linux. I may not need to be a Linux administrator, but it sure makes me feel a lot more comfortable when using Windows knowing my way around than when I jump on a Linux machine. My second learning objective is to develop my presentation skills to be better.  I’ve done a lot of presenting last year, but I know there is room for improvement.  Lastly, learning the new features in 2017 and vNext since my company is an early adopter of SQL Server we need to stay ahead of the curve.

How and When Do I Want to Learn

I’m lucky in a couple of ways.  First I have a company that encourages me to go to SQL Saturdays, and I’m an Idera Ace this year so I plan to attend and speak at as many SQL Saturdays as I can get away with (I did speak at 18 in 2017, and do not think I will reach that mark this year). As a by-product of going to SQL Saturdays, I will be working on my networking skills and meeting new people. Second, I have a Pluralsight subscription there are a lot Linux classes on there.  So I’ll be learning form SQL Saturdays, Pluralsight, hands-on at work, and with my new Antsle at home I will continue to present at SQL Saturdays making efforts to improve my speaking skills. Then I hope to attend PASS Summit next year, and I will be reading blogs and writing blogs as I learn. I will continue to attend my local user groups to learn general SQL topics there.

How Do I Plan to Improve on What I Learned

For Linux, I plan on taking the certification exam after much practice of setting up machines at home and getting some hands-on experience at work.  Then hopefully halfway through the year, I’ll be ready to do a presentation with things I’ve learned about running SQL on Linux. I plan on blogging about whatever topics come up at work Linux or not at least twice a month to help continue to learn and help others learn. I’ll be setting up a lot of machines on my Antsle once it gets here and moving all my demo machines off my laptop. Developing presentation skills takes time and knowing what to improve on so hopefully attendees will continue to give good feedback, or if you are a speaker and want to stop in and give some feedback, please do (just do not tell me ahead of time that is why you are there). Lastly, since we are early adopters I’ll need to continue to read blog posts and play with features as we install the newest version of SQL Server in our environment and I can blog about them once I find the most useful.

Action Plan For You

Consider taking a few hours and making a PDP and laying out how much money and time you can spend developing skills this year and how you would go about doing it.  Unfortunately for me, I always budget more than 200 hours which puts me in the hyperfocus category.  I plan on putting together my PDP over the Christmas break before the New Year begins.

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