Every Software Engineer comes with unique characteristics, but as a group, we’re not always great at shouting about our achievements. We take pride in our work, and take deep satisfaction crafting a solution to a complex problem, but can be suspicious of those who arrogantly flaunt their successes.
“Empty vessels make the most noise” - Proverb
We are however aware of the realities of how the real world works. Confidence in the workplace is not always a great proxy for competence but it is usually a pre-requisite for career progression. Those who can make the most of advertising their successes, with the right dose of political nouse, are often first in line for promotions and pay rises.
Here we look at the idea of keeping a Brag Log, a regular journal of your achievements, learning, and growth to document your progression. A Brag Log will improve your self-awareness, self-confidence, and growth through in-the-moment introspection and adaption. It will also come in handy for formal situations, such as Performance Reviews, where you have the golden opportunity to assert your achievements and progress your career.
The inspiration for the term ‘Brag Log’ came from a blog post by Julia Evans: “Get your work recognized: write a brag document”
Why keep a Brag Log?
Neither you nor your manager are likely to remember the myriad of things that happened during a sprint, let alone when you get together for a longer-term Performance Review. A Brag Log will avoid the misfortune of forgetting about your achievements in critical career progression opportunities.
“Don't hide your light under a bushel” - Proveb, from Jesus, Sermon on the Mount
Asides from its practical use in your formal Performance Reviews a Brag Log will give you a sense of personal empowerment, taking control over your own development.
A sense of greater autonomy over your career progression.
Accountability for your work and insights into opportunities to learn and grow.
Connection to your sense of purpose and meaning in your work.
A habit-forming practise in self-awareness.
A self-confident antidote to Imposter Syndrome.
Insight into your mental and emotional wellbeing.
A Brag Log puts you in control of your self-development and your career progression. Don’t see it as bureaucratic form filling imposed by your manager, if fact if your manager suggests keeping a Brag Log they are showing that they sincerely care about your progress. Your manager may also keep their own Brag Log and share it openly with the team, this will make them a committed advocate to the process as well as being an opportunity to be a little vulnerable, that vital ingredient for building trust.
Your human experience should matter:
In a People First environment, your human experience matters. It matters to you, and it should matter a great deal to your manager and the wider organisation.
You should feel entitled and encouraged to strive for ‘Peak Experiences’ of pride at work.
What could you record in your Brag Log?
Think about those small moments of pride and satisfaction during your day, any impactful interactions you had with your colleagues, and any insights or opportunities to learn (even negative experiences are worth noting if you had a learning insight).
The following is a sample of situations you may wish to log:
Recognition from a colleague
Feedback from a customer
Overcoming a barrier, internal (mind barrier) or external
Facilitating a meeting that went well
Mentoring or coaching a colleague
Discussing a difficult or awkward issue
Asking a great question
A mistake that you learned from
An unexpected insight
Making a decision
Applying a new skill
Being kind to a colleague
An innovation or a breakthrough
Preventing an error or averting a disaster
Showing pragmatism
Using your influence to make an impact
Seeking the truth or politely challenging assumptions
Identifying an opportunity for Continuous Operational Improvement
A successful collaboration
Finding FLOW or successful bouts of Deep Work
Improving a process
Taking ownership
Thinking through complexity
A rewarding interaction with a colleague
Escaping the Drama Triangle - not falling into Victim, Villain or Hero mode
Taking a risk
Giving helpful feedback
Showing Leadership
Ensuring the next person succeeds
Achievements outside work: Blogging; Speaking; Online Course; Contributing to an Open Source project, Listening to podcasts; Reading a book; Side project
How to record your achievements in a Brag Log:
Keep the format simple:
What happened?
What is the impact?
What did you learn? How would you do things differently? What actions will you take?
Be very specific, write a short description, give context so that it is meaningful to others and your future self, link to ticket numbers if relevant, try to be completely honest, this is for you and your ongoing development.
What you record in your log doesn’t need to be earth-shattering, it just needs to be relevant and noteworthy for YOU.
Try to agree on a common format with your colleagues for standardisation.
Find your own cadence for recording log updates - daily, weekly, fortnightly, but be fully committed to the process.
#Tagging
Use customised tags to make things searchable so you may easily retrieve items when you need them:
#YourImportantGoal; #CoporateValues; #CareerProgressionCritera;
Or agree with your colleagues a set of generic tags:
#recognition; #customerFeedback; #overcomingObstacles; #facilitating; #mentoring; #coaching; #integrity; #questioning; #insight; #decisionMaking; #kindness; #innovation; #escapingDrama; #avertingDisaster; #pragmatism; #truthSeeking; #responsibility; #ownership #continuousImprovement; #leadership; #collaboration;
#Pride Rating Tags:
Perhaps give yourself a pride scoring, perhaps 1 to 5 according to how proud you feel of your achievement. E.g. #PR4 and #PR5 scores for the items you are most proud of. These can then be searchable for your performance reviews.
Logging negative events, mistakes and failures:
You should feel encouraged to also log your failures and mistakes, on the condition that you also write down what you learned, and commit to actions that prevent you from repeating the error. In a Psychologically Safe Engineering environment, being open about failure is normalised as part of the process.
“Every mistake that you make and learn from will save you from thousands of similar mistakes in the future.” - Ray Dalio
“The master has failed more times than the novice has even tried” - Stephen McCranie
Brag Log Peer Reviews:
Engineers are well aware of the value of having their work peer-reviewed, and the same logic could apply to a Brag Log. A People First team should develop sufficient Psychological Safety for honest feedback between colleagues. You don’t need to always rely on your manager for feedback and encouragement, you can create an energy in the team around helping each other to grow through honest inquiry, reflecting on events and suggesting positive future actions.
Help your colleagues, remind them of their achievements they did not log, discuss learnings and opportunities to grow, look for patterns in their experience, but respectfully remember not to question their felt experience. This is an opportunity for you to ask good coaching questions as a peer:
What are you really proud of?
Tell me more about this experience?
How could you share or repeat your success?
What would you like to see happen?
What else could you have done?
What have you learnt about yourself?
What new commitments will you make to yourself?
Enter the peer-review process with the spirit of wanting to help each other succeed and try to avoid being competitive with your brags. Apply a “win and help win” mindset, be proud of yourself while celebrating the achievements of others.
You could rotate peer-review partners, but make a firm commitment with your colleagues to take the time for a sincere review. Schedule the sessions at the end of each sprint or each month. Learn from each other’s experiences.
Closing thoughts:
Don’t hide your light under a bushel, use a Brag Log for earnest celebration and reflection on your achievements. It will remove the pain of any self-reviews as part of your formal Performance Review as well as giving you inspiration and motivation to build on your past achievements.
The Ancient Greek philosopher, Socrates, urged us to “know thyself”, and this maxim was inscribed in the forecourt of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi. The first step to self-improvement and growth is self-awareness. Through self-awareness, we can identify our patterns of behaviour, tendencies, and preferences. We can only improve the way we interact with others by first indulging in honest introspections of ourselves. How we feel and react in certain situations, what we like to do, what inspires us, and what makes us proud. We are all unique expressions of human potential, before we can move forward we must know and accept ourselves as we are.
We can often be extremely harsh on ourselves, your greatest opponent is yourself, so your Brag Log can be a mirror of kindness, releasing us from patterns of self-criticism and doubt.
Human beings love a good story. We are story-telling chimps. We often think of our lives as a story, with twists and turns, drama and intrigue. We attach meaning to our experiences and order them into stories. Your Brag Log is your career story as it unfolds, with challenges to overcome, dragons to slay, and a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Your Brag Log can be like a collection of signposts on your career journey, rich with peaks and valleys, pointing the way to your future successes.
And of course, when your future self wants to create a CV/Résumé to seek a new role, you’ll have a cohesive narrative of readily available past achievements for inspiration.
This is immensely valuable. Thank you for a galvanizing and proactive read, my dear.