The Women in Technology lunch and panel discussion at the PASS Summit last week had a great topic: negotiation. When it came time to Q & A, I knew exactly what topic I wanted to introduce.

How Should You Prepare to Ask for a Raise?

It’s funny this was my question, because I don’t need to ask for a raise. As a co-founder and co-owner of a business I am no longer salaried. Instead of asking for raises, I negotiate contracts and use the principle of least regret.

But I wanted to talk specifics about this topic. Why?

Over the years I learned the hard way about asking for a raise. First, it took me a long time to learn simply that I should ask. I’m not alone: according to this study men are nine times more likely to ask for more money than women. If you’re a woman, or are close to a woman professional, this is worth some conversations. When is the last time you asked for additional compensation? How did you do it? When do you think is the right time to ask again?

Once I started asking it took me a long time to learn techniques to support my request. Through trial and error I discovered there are relatively easy things you can do daily to show the value you bring to your company. This is important— for DBAs and developers, I find we need to outline a methodology before we get moving. Once we have a plan, we can move forward.

Today, I will share tips from panelists at the WIT lunch and introduce additional tips which have been key to my own success.

Use Your Performance Reviews

Karen Lopez ( blog|twitter ) emphasized using your performance reviews to your advantage. I agree with this strongly— and if you are one of the few people who don’t have a formal annual performance review, I think you should (gasp!) ask for one.

We all tend to dread performance reviews. We think of one thing: paperwork.

Here’s how to look at your performance review differently. Think of it as being about data. Your performance review is a chance to show data about the value you provide to your company. This is, in a sense, an annual resume. Your resume is better when it highlights facts about how you perform well on the job.

Here’s the type of data to include in your performance review:

• I reduced the speed of processing daily ROI for PandaBears by 20%, ensuring that data is delivered to customers well within SLAs;
• I identified ten customer impacting bugs and drove 8 to resolution;
• I implemented monitoring for application availability across 100 production SQL Server instances;
• I wrote and presented three brownbag training sessions for developers across departments on optimizing transact SQL.

Karen emphasized that you should describe not only how much work you did, but also quantify the impact of your work. If you identified bugs and drove them to resolution, how much time did this save customers? If you consolidated databases on SQL Server instances, how much money did this save the company over the next five years?

This requires a bit of research, but it has a silver lining. To discover the impact of your changes, you’ll need other people to help you. What would hosting and maintenance cost for those servers you decommissioned? Ask the team who manages your datacenter. How did resolving those bugs impact customers’ daily lives? Ask their account managers. Did anyone learn something in those brownbags you gave that they used in production code? Ask a sampling of people who attended and include explicit examples about how it was useful.

By asking these questions you will build stronger relationships with your coworkers. By talking about how you’ve made things better together you’re increasing the likelihood that you’ll be helpful to each other in the future.

Yanni Robel ( blog | twitter ) shared that she proactively keeps a weekly list of threes: the top three things she did, the top three things that weren’t done due to other priorities, and the three things she plans to address the next week. She shares this list with her management and uses it to track her own progress. This is a way in which she creates data she can review over time for her own performance.

To Do: Today, write down a list of three things you’ve improved in the last three months. Create a weekly half hour calendar appointment for yourself to expand on this list by adding items, adding facts, and adding impact statements. Each week, work to introduce more facts and think about ways you can measure your impact on the company and incorporate the data into your performance review and conversations about advancing your career.

Perform Health Checks

One of my favorite things about working on a SQL Server Health Check with clients is training them how to use the Health Check process to advance their careers.

When we perform a health check with a client, our chief objective is to identify the client’s pain points and design targeted, realistic solutions. We step you through a top-to-tails approach to your SQL Server environment and train you on the process: how to take the pulse of your system, how to interpret the results. As part of this process we baseline the system together.

This process is fully repeatable by you after the health check is over. The health check doesn’t just give you solutions, it gives you the tools you need to make things better and show the improvement with data.

Performing repeat health checks and baselining your system is an extremely powerful method you can use to connect with your management chain— and this goes for both DBAs and developers. This is data that your management team can use to show the value of your team and raise your profile in the organization.

By focussing on the data and providing metrics about improved performance, you become increasingly valuable and visible. This will lead you to great career opportunities, many of which have increased compensation.

Negotiate Your Rewards

There are times when a raise isn’t in the cards, and you should always be ready to ask for more than money. Think ahead of time about what may be useful to you. You can score in multiple areas, and you may win more than you expect.

What does promotion mean in your organization? In some organizations, promotions aren’t directly tied to huge raises, but may increase other benefits and lead to larger bonuses.

What training opportunities are available? What skills would you like to advance by being assigned to a particular project? Do you have an idea for a way to improve your system that you would like to have time to test in a lab? What improvements might that make?

There are many types of rewards you can use to advance your career in addition to direct monetary compensation. When you’re in a spot where monetary compensation is truly limited, you want to maximize the rest of these areas so your experience grows and your career continues to move forward.

When negotiating training and project work, keep a close eye on your time commitments. While you take on additional responsibilities you must also account for time to transition some of your older tasks to other people, or to automate those tasks so they don’t require daily work. Put this in a positive light and think in terms of creating a successful proposal for making good use of your time.

Takeaways to Take Home More

The key here is to remember a few things:

• It’s important to ask for a raise or promotion. By doing this you are explicitly stating “I actively want to advance my career.” Don’t assume your management knows this about you.
• Ask in a way that shows your strengths. Even if your request isn’t granted this time, take this opportunity to talk about your successes and strengths in a way that can open doors later on.
• Know that “no” is not a final answer. As long as you’re taking action to increase your knowledge and advance your career, you’re moving in the right direction.
• Value your time, and value time you can devote to learning.

Kendra Little

Kendra specializes in high availability and performance tuning. She is a Microsoft Certified Master in SQL Server-- the highest technical SQL Server Certification available. Kendra loves databases and software development more than long walks on the beach. Those cartoons in her blog posts? She draws 'em all. Read more and contact Kendra.

More Posts - Website

Follow Me:

You might be surprised to learn that my goal as a consultant isn’t to deliver recommendations to my customers. Instead, my goal is to deliver recommendations that help my customer’s teams be better customers to each other after I’m gone.

This is a fancy way of saying my recommendations need to be practical. I don’t recommend changing all the application code to the DBA team if that’s not something within their control– I determine where the critical needs are located, what range of options are available, and what’s viable in the short, medium, and long term given their internal customers and service providers. I provide data and tools to work effectively in the specific environment.

I don’t always speak the language of customers and services, because not everyone understands it. Good news: you do have customers at work, and understanding that will make you more successful.

You’ve Got A Lot of Customers Inside Your Own Company

Making internal customer and service provider relationships successful was one of the best skillsets I learned when I worked at Microsoft Corporation. I kept mission-critical SQL Servers highly available in a very large and complex environment, and I had a lot of customers. Some of my customers were people who paid Microsoft for services, but my other customers were application development teams, program managers, product managers (there’s a difference!), user support teams, and system engineers.

Some of these relationships were reciprocal, like with my application development teams. We made requests of each other, we delivered things to each other. We provided services for each other.

Thinking about customers is more than terminology. It’s a mindset, and it’s beneficial. These aren’t “just” coworkers. They aren’t simply people with problems. You’re part of a team who provides a service: the service has limits and its exceptions, and the service needs to be defined. Your customers use the service, and by doing so they can make or break your job.

Here’s one secret I learned: even in a highly competitive environment, 99% of the time your customers want to help you succeed. No, really. They may be grouchy at times, and they may come off as unapproachable. But it’s almost always the case that if you succeed in providing a great service for them, their job will be better and their life will be easier.

Your Boss Is Not Your Customer

Not everyone is your customer. This is important to understand. Your mission is to provide services to your customers, but your boss is not your customer.

This can be hard for many of us to fully realize. We think that success at work is measured by making our boss happy. But the real truth is, like in any human relationship, the more you focus on just making someone happy the more likely they are to become dissatisfied with you. Instead, focus on the being great at what you do: both the technical aspects and your customer service. Your manager is there to help you be successful.

This probably isn’t how your job works now. You don’t need to walk into your managers office and declare “I want to make a change in our relationship!” Instead, as you change your focus and behavior over time, talk to your management with that focus. Your team relationships will naturally shift as your focus changes.

Your Job Is To Be Great at Providing A Service. Even if the Service Ain’t Great.

Your boss has a lot to say about who your customers are and how you provide services. You have a lot to say about this too– you should make sure these are both defined well enough for you to be successful.

The road to success comes in having productive conversations with key customers.

Know this: saying yes all the time won’t make your customers happy. In fact, it’s likely to do the opposite because you won’t be able to deliver on what you agree to. Inside of a company, sometimes you just have a job where things will be consistently imperfect. Listening to your customers and responding intelligently usually will make them happy, even if the overall service they’re getting has problems.

It may be accurate, but don't lead with this.

Step 1: Be Known

You don’t have to be great at small talk, just be curious about how other teams work, and ask them about how they interact with your team. Be a good listener.

Reach out periodically to customers you work with, both the ones who complain or make requests, and the ones who are less interactive. Ask them what their experience is like.

Step 2: Be Responsive

Let me say first: this doesn’t mean answering all your customers’ emails right away. You don’t want to become everyone’s helpdesk (unless you actually work in the helpdesk). People understand you have a variety of tasks to do in your job, unless you give them the impression otherwise.

Make sure you answer people within a window that’s acceptable in your company– at most places it’s usually a business day or two for normal priority requests. Answer questions within this window all the time when you’re in the office. Be consistent about this, but make sure you establish the urgency early on. If something is critical you don’t want two weeks of email spread out on the issue because you always take a day to reply. If an email thread starts feeling like it’s taking forever, set up a meeting to polish things off in person.

Step 3: Practice Saying ‘No’ In Six Sneaky Ways

Don’t write a lot of long emails about why you can’t or won’t do things. If it’s a big deal, arrange to have a conversation in person, and then follow up with a brief email. If it’s something normal, don’t say no– try these:

• Suggest Alternatives. Most times a workaround is all someone needs. “Have you tried using Blarghomatic for that? It’s not designed specifically for it, but it’ll get the job done.”
• Ask questions. Find out what’s been done in the past, or if they know someone else who’s confronted that problem. Enlist the help of others who are in the situation. There’s nothing new under the sun, and frequently there’s not much new in the cubicle, either.
• Find out the frequency of the problem. What’s a big pain for you to change may be a one-time issue on your customer’s end. Even if it’s critical, if it’s a one time thing you may act differently than if it’s going to come back to your inbox weekly.
• Explain the cost. If the issue is just too expensive to the company to fix, explain the factors. This is one thing you want to do by phone or in person rather than in email– just send a summary follow up. (Avoid the forwarded message titled “Why it’s too expensive to ever make you happy”)
• Share the load. If the issue is just time and resources to get something done, see if you can get help. If there are things the customer can do to make the job 10% easier, let them know. If you can borrow someone from another team to help move things to get the customer through a critical period, research that. Whenever you can, let the customer know what you’re looking into.
• Brainstorm. Your customers have ideas, too! Oftentimes, they can solve their own problems, and just need you to help them see it.

You can make your customers into fans by doing these things other than saying no. This can make enough of a difference that they send the occasional email to your boss about that great thing you did yesterday in helping them find a way to make their problem less of a pain. Those emails do something important: they help your boss demonstrate that you and your team provide value. And they make your boss feel good.

Step 4: Be a Good Customer Within Your Company

This coin has two sides. I also learned to be a good customer at Microsoft. This means being clear about your needs to your service provider.

80% of this is simple thoughtfulness about reducing back-and-forth.

Here’s a simple example: does it help your SAN team if you create a single request and include the amount of space you need immediately, the number of LUNs and RAID level for each one, the estimated size in a year, and the information about the host servers and whether the HBAs are configured? Probably.

If you’re writing a new application, does it make it easier to deploy if you document what the components are and their purpose, what the estimated activity levels are for the first quarter, half, and year, what capacity is estimated, and what the margin of error is? Build time for figuring that out into your project plan, and make sure it gets delivered.

Find out how to make it easier for people to provide you services, and then do it. Do it a few times and people will respect you for it. Suddenly, you’re known as someone who really has their act together.

Martha Stewart Is Right: Thank Other People

The other 20% of being a good customer is giving people credit for doing good things. When someone has made a difference, write a quick email to them and copy their manager. Mention what they did and how it helped you and your team. Be specific, and make it a simple thank you. Don’t always pick the obvious person, and don’t try to be strategic about who you thank– you don’t want to be a suck-up, you just want to be honest.

You can also say this in person, of course, but if your organization is larger than 150 people, writing it in an email will make a real difference.

Making this a habit does a couple of things for you: it gives people positive feedback for helping you. In a medium large organization, it also makes you noticeable. It shows that you are an important customer and that you share your opinions. Just thanking people for helping makes you a more significant player.

If this is your first attempt at a thank you note, maybe you shouldn't send them.

What’s In It For You

The truth is, doing all of these things isn’t really extra work. If you practice these things for three months, it will save you loads of time thereafter. This will be because people know you and will see you as an ally. They’ll understand more about the work you have to do, and they’ll appreciate when you can do something for them.

Improving your expertise at service delivery will make you a person and not a commodity. This is a huge benefit for DBAs, developers, network admins, and anyone in technology.

“Not having time” to handle the social parts of a technical job will only give you overblown projects with confused requirements, and emergency work because of customer needs that were discovered too late.

Best of all, if you become skilled at working with customers, you’ll have raving fans. You’ll develop a network of people who want to help you succeed.

At the end of the day, that not only makes your boss happy, that makes each day at work more pleasant. And eventually, it gets you everywhere you want to go.

Kendra Little

Kendra specializes in high availability and performance tuning. She is a Microsoft Certified Master in SQL Server-- the highest technical SQL Server Certification available. Kendra loves databases and software development more than long walks on the beach. Those cartoons in her blog posts? She draws 'em all. Read more and contact Kendra.

More Posts - Website

Follow Me: