December 24, 2012, 7:56 PM —
Sometimes a single activity can have multiple positive professional advantages. Building small tools in the workplace is the poster child for this phenomenon.
Regardless of your area of expertise within IT, there are small tools you can create, that once built, can make your job a little bit easier and a little bit more productive. Examples of these tools are:
• If you are a DBA: Stored procedures that look for data inconsistencies across tables and/or databases.
• If you are a programmer: Stub programs that mimic interfaces to other applications
• If you are a tester: Create template testing plans.
• If you are a help desk technician: Write custom scripts that do PC diagnostics or install company specific drive images.
• If you are a project manager: If your IT shop does not currently use a formalized project management methodology, create one.
• If you are a data communication specialist: Create a collection of vendor and open source based networking tools to detect, troubleshoot and correct networking related issues.
This list could go on and on. The moral of the above examples is to think about your specific job responsibilities and define a collection of job aides that you can create yourself, get permission to buy, and/or download for free.
The creation of this self-formulated toolkit has advantages for the company, your department/boss, and of course you personally. From your company’s perspective, your toolkit allows you to provide better service to the recipients of your service. To your department/boss, this toolkit, if shared with your co-workers, not only helps your department provide better overall service, but it can also enhance the department’s overall efficiency, quality, and effectiveness.
Follow Eric on Google+
