Cindy Patterson, CETPA CTO Mentor Candidate

 

Outcome

 

VTL-03. Demonstrate the ability to show professional growth in leadership related to the individual development plan.

 

Context

 

My current role is Manager of Application Support at Santa Clara County Office of Education.  I manage a team of 8 Application System Analysts who support the County Office of Education and districts in Santa Clara and San Benito counties.  In the past I have been an operations manager and supervised desktop, server, and network support.  I have neither experience in Education Technology nor experience teaching in K12.

 

Artifact

 

My artifact was a 5 minute presentation of professional growth.

 

Reflection

 

Creating my presentation on professional growth was an opportunity to see my improvement over the year.   The three areas I choose were Organizational Agility, Time Management and Developing Others. 

 

Organizational Agility

 

I enjoyed reading the book, Wake Me When It’s Time to Work by T.R. Edel.  It was written in 1999 and some of the premises may make people uncomfortable or seem politically incorrect. Most of the book’s premises have at least a nugget of truth.  During the year I was more self-aware about my organizational agility and pushed myself to go to professional gathers such as ACSA events.  The result is that I have been asked more often to participate in things like interview panels even outside of my department.  I will also attend the CETPA event this year and continue networking.

 

Developing Others

 

I changed my original action plan and read the book Shine by Ned Hallowell as part of a PLC with my fellow managers.  I also survived writing 8 appraisals.  A key thing I learned through study and discussion with my Director is that Developing Others is about more than helping employees obtain the goals they have for themselves; being the google maps of professional development.  Developing others is helping employees identify their strengths and then helping them create goals.

 

Time Management

 

I changed books for Time Management from the original plan.  After some research I read The Life Changing Art of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo.  I also had conversations with my Director and Subordinates.  The book was interesting but not very helpful.  What I did discover is that by letting one staff member be constantly late to work and meetings was really taking time away from the whole team and making us less productive.  I worked with my Director and addressed the performance issue and I am seeing improvement.  Time management is not always about being organized it is about leading a team.

 

Overall I learned it is important to constantly reassess your skillset and create new goals and plans to achieve them.  The Microsoft Competency Wheel provides a good framework to help identify skillsets needed as a CTO.  What I have learned this year is: collaborate, plan, and continue to learn.

 

Strategic leadership also focused on Vendor Relationships as a topic.  It was interesting to hear Robert’s anecdotes and perspective.  The Road to Abilene video that Robert shared to demonstrate group dynamics is also very true.  I will work with my group to ensure we have true rational for decisions and use some of the strategic planning tools Robert introduced.

My presentation demonstrates I have proficiency at identifying goals, creating a development plan for myself and achieving professional growth. As I grow into the role of a CTO this skill will help me identify weaknesses and continue to grow.  The activity also helped me address some issues and deficits in my current role.