The Self Assessment is a document that has for objective to condense deliveries made by one contributor within a timeframe. This is not something I came up with. I learned it from an ex-co-worker at VTEX and I have been using it for myself and the people I manage for a few years now.
For me, it is one of the most important documents that IT workers (for our context) should create and maintain through time. It has the work log as foundation so if you are not familiar with it, have a read at the intro.
Some important concepts:
The Self Assessment can have other names and formats depending on companies but the global idea should be the same.
There are several options but I like to do them every three months, which gives four documents per year. What you wrote within your work log is still pretty clear after three months. More than this, your memory can mix up several topics or even forget. In that three-month case, it can be known as a “Quarterly Check” for example.
As stated in the concepts above, four times a year allows to create two mid-year documents, let’s say January-June and July-December, which then serve as base for the annual review.
Web. Something really simple to create, edit, and share. Keep it in an easy-to-reach place. The company’s Google Drive is good. Your personal Drive is better. Our domain of activity is very dynamic and the chance of changing company is real. Keep it under your control, and have ownership of your career.
One page. Try as much as you can to keep it within a page. The manager who taught me this made it clear with the following idea:
“Imagine this document be printed to land on a director’s desk and pilled among twenty others for reading and analysis for a two hours long session of performance reviews for potential promotions.”
Is it clear now why it has to be short? Two pages increase the reading process’ fatigue, allow for a page loss (ok, digitally that will not happen but you get the point), and can come with unnecessary information. If you really need more space, talk with your manager. Exception can be made of course.