It's Resolution Time

Let me start by saying this: I hate New Year's resolutions. I work out in the early morning hours at a gym year round, and I dread the January rush of New Year's resolutions. I just keep reminding myself that I only need to bear through about 3 weeks before people give it up.

However, I've been doing a lot of reflection over the past year. I'm not sure if these are really resolutions, but it is a summary of some things I want to document for myself. Some things are mistakes I don't want to repeat, others are things I would like to tackle or improve in the coming year.

Estimating work - I got burned multiple times by underestimating work this year. Additionally, I got REALLY burned by other peoples' underestimations. There are some things I can do about dealing with other peoples' estimations, but I am a believer in taking charge of what you can control. This is a tricky proposition because estimating software is a very difficult endeavor. I plan on dedicating time to researching the estimation of software projects.

Being a jerk - I have decided I am way too nice around the workplace. I was looking back at my biggest project of this past year, and overall, it's a mess. And the things that are the biggest mess could have been prevented. The team was really crammed for time to meet a deadline, so corners were cut. There were some things that I was not comfortable with at the time, but I went along with it or turned a blind eye. I am through with going with the flow. I plan on being more difficult to work with when it comes to compromising quality.

Automate everything - I am generally very good at automating processes. However, there were cases this past year where I got too wrapped up with the task at hand and dropped the ball on this. I need to take a step back more often during the course of projects.

Post to this blog regularly - I've enjoyed writing posts for this blog, but I completely failed to keep it up in the second half of 2009. I plan on getting back in the saddle for 2010.