I sincerely hope my bosses at work are not reading this. :)
Well, when I am stuck at work, I employ some techniques to
get ahead. It makes me smile to think about them, but it works.
So today, I am looking at a task, as a part of my training.
They have given me a requirement and asked me to develop it. So far, I was
re-doing whatever was already developed, so I had a reference. Now, I have to
come up with a design on my own. So as will be the case, I was stuck.
So this is how I approached it.
- I tried to glance through all the documents. I cannot read exhaustively and understand well at the first read. So generally, I read twice or may be more to understand a document well. The first read is what can be called a perusal, where I am just going through, without getting an in-depth understanding. So now I know what topic the document covers and what is where in the document, if haven’t slept off by then that is.
- Which leads us to point 2, sleep over it. No need to pack up and go home. Just close your eyes, take a power nap, take a break. :) Today I actually nodded off till a colleague walked in to chat with me. Good I had my back to her and my head up straight. :)
- Once fresh, I read through the document again, and now it makes 50% more sense. I am looking at things in a way that I didn’t look at earlier. Newer perspective. And the world is a whole lot better!
- I list down my understanding of what needs to be done, and the steps needed to do it. At this level, questions will begin to spring up, and I will get it clarified. No matter how long it makes, I ensure that my questions have answers, even if I have to look them up myself.
- And so now that I have understood what needs to be done, and have an idea on how to do it, I start. I ensure that I do not make any assumptions; it will kill the work, and is the most dangerous thing as far as a programmer is concerned.
- So I start, by breaking it up into tiny baby steps which will not overwhelm me and then get going. I plan on what I will do for how long, and if have exceeded one deadline that I set, I know it will impact the overall deadline, and will work accordingly.
So there… that’s how I get things going at work. :)
2 comments:
i think now u r eligible for a promotion.. usually, we dont make a big fuss about what we do, or give a structure to 'how we drink coffee' or something trivial like reading a document..
the moment u give an importance, and start telling abt this with such an air, congrats gayu, u are eligible for the elite management (who work very hard to understand what is work all about)
actually the toughest job if you ask me is to go through a 100 page document..
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