With 2010 coming to a close, I am looking back on the year and figuring out how to measure the success and/or failures of the year. I am also curious on how others measure their yearly success.

For me, 2010 is the first year I am measuring myself not using billable hours as a consultant. I think most people who read my blog know that I switched into a business development role 'officially' for 2010. So my measuring stick at PSC starts with my sales quota. Now, PSC is a privately owned company and we do not share our financials, so I will just talk generally. I had what I considered a challenging quota for my first year in sales and I did better than I expected I would do at the beginning of the year. Read into that as you will :-)

The second way that I get measured at PSC is thru a yearly performance review. Our review cycle is that we do our self reviews in early May and reviews with our managers later in the month. I went back and looked at both the self and management reviews and looked at my six month progress. I see good progress on my action list and a bunch of things to move forward on things I want to work on. The sales world is so different than the consulting world - there are so many skills and processes to learn and master. I rejected the idea of this new role (and the quota) for 3 years and after 12 months in, I wish I had made this change earlier.

I also get weekly feedback from my direct manager at a one on one meeting. I get to ask for help and talk about activity and planning. I am lucky that the person who really convinced me to make this career goal is the person managing me on a weekly basis. There is also a weekly management meeting at PSC where I get to learn and work with the rest of the business development and management team. It has been a real learning experience this year.

I also have some external measurements that I use. I have a mentorship group that I like to compare my year to others of the same age group and success level. I have an old mentor from a previous company that I meet with once a quarter and I ask for some direct feedback from them. I also use family and friends to measure things besides my work during the day at PSC.

For myself, 2010 was a great year. 2011 looks to be even better with great opportunity, greater challenges and a whole hell of a lot of hard work.

So how do you measure yourself? Any tips or thoughts to share would be great.