Maternity leave in IT, or how not to lose yourself in the profession
3 months ago I came out of maternity leave and, once again starting the work of a business analyst, I felt one simple truth about myself. It would be easier to return to work, having thought out in advance how to keep yourself “in professional form” during the decree. IT-sphere is so changeable that sometimes you do not have time for new methodologies and technologies, even constantly being inside the process, and even falling out of it - at least for a year - can play a cruel joke.
Do not think that involvement in the process will help to quickly recover. No one will give you time for it. The tasks will fall down with a snowball, they will have to be solved, combining work with raising a child (I mean, the option “I will work on this at home” will not work anymore). So the risks need to be assessed and laid in advance.
Perhaps my simple recommendations and advice will be useful to those who are now on the eve of a wonderful event, but plan to return to their work after the deadline.
')
A few words about yourself
I am a senior business analyst for a product line in a company that develops a document management system and business processes, and also develops related products based on standard functionality. What business analysts do, I think, there is no need to tell.
At the time of leaving on maternity leave, the company worked for about a year and a half, mainly engaged in the design of mobile applications. I liked everything and even succeeded, since there are many great specialists in the company - there are people who have to learn from the experience. It seems that they have just started to notice, they have just started to increase their competence - and now there is already that very moment when we need to think about preserving it and not losing it.
Council number 1. All is well on time!
Naturally, the question arose of how to tell the manager about his plans for the future, because he had plans for me, and they clearly differed from mine. There were a lot of fears, for example, that they would tag you as a “worthless employee” and write them off at the first opportunity or start mentally squeezing them out of the team. Stories are known for various examples ...
However, my boss, unlike those who consider a pregnant woman an incredible burden, and going on maternity leave as an unforgivable betrayal, turned out to be a wise man and even more ... Before the pregnancy, we had agreements on raising me in office, for which a personal development plan. So, despite my interesting position, all our agreements remained in force. Just a month before going on maternity leave, the desired promotion was received, all the goals of the personal development plan were fulfilled.
So my first advice to you is : if before pregnancy you had at least some agreements with your manager regarding your professional growth:
you should not give them up just because you got pregnant. It is worth reminding the leadership that your development is a mutually beneficial acquisition, because you are certainly going to return.
If everything worked out, then the main thing is not to relax and, roughly speaking, not to score at all before leaving (or else pregnancy, she is such - the anticipation of motherhood begins to suppress the mind of the woman).
Council number 2. Go away beautiful ...
The specificity of the IT sphere is such that you should always be careful with your knowledge base, keep it in the proper order and clearly remember: everything that you impose or fix in the requirements, write in the TZ, etc., should be understandable to anyone your colleague If the fruits of your work cannot be realized and learned, then at a certain moment they will become useless to everyone, and everything will have to be redone again.
Hence the advice : if you want to be welcomed after a maternity leave, as a competent specialist who cares not only about himself, but also about the team, bring all your affairs in order before maternity leave:
Council number 3. Keep your nose in the wind!
Here you are on a full maternity leave, become a happy mother, it's time to think about yourself beloved.
It was extremely important for me to come back and be “in shape”, but I thought that this form would continue by itself, well, or I will make it closer to the exit. Believe me, this is a deep mistake. It is imperative to monitor everything related to the development of the product with which you work, so as not to ask questions from the series: “Wow, what's this? And this? Have you implemented it too? ”
Hence the third piece of advice : practice shows that during maternity leave, remote access to the workplace is closed (and there is no workplace as such), so be sure to agree with your manager that you will have access to the system where you keep all documentation on product or project. And, of course, try to monitor all changes - this is important.
Council number 4. "I'll be back"
However, to be in illusions that, having given birth to a child, you will improve yourself every day, self-educate or work remotely, and the baby will constantly sleep, occasionally waking up “to eat”, it is highly undesirable, otherwise disappointment awaits. Even elementary to devote time to yourself will begin to turn out not earlier than in six months.
So the fourth piece of advice : do not in any way flaunt or tell your supervisor that your first child is working for you, and you are ready to start it, for example, after a couple of months in remote mode or in some other way. This can result in a conflict situation and broken hopes. Everything has its time ... The first six months - a year to return to the profession, in my opinion, is problematic.
Council number 5. "To find…
Finally, the first difficult and, at the same time, saturated with interesting new events, a year on maternity leave. The child has become more independent, you have more free time, and here it is time to begin to act (although the brain, who is passionate about the profession, will require food after a one-year diet, without any reminders).
The fifth tip is simple : make a plan (without it, as a rule, time management is difficult):
- what competences you have limping, and you would like to pull them up to the required level during maternity leave. For example, foreign languages ​​or plans for a long time stood certification in the professional field?
- What competencies have you lost over the past year (analyze what is forgotten)? You can try joking around somewhere ... historically, this is the best way to understand how competitive you are.
Council number 6. ... and neutralize! ”
What to do with lame and lost competencies after their identification:
Here it is necessary to understand that it is possible to attend courses, trainings and seminars only with the presence of grandparents who will gladly help you sit with your child, but even in this case it is not a fact that it will work out. For the entire period of maternity leave, I was not able to allocate time for any in-person activities related to professional development. The reasons are simple - as a rule, if there is a possibility and a desire, then there is no time, or vice versa.
If the overwhelming desire to communicate with colleagues and share knowledge will still prevail over life's difficulties, then I will list a couple of resources where you can learn about meetings, trainings, seminars in the field of business analysis and IT in general:
But I only welcomed any remote or extramural self-education: basically, I “surfed the expanses” of the Internet during the child’s daytime sleep, or at night if there were strength left. I will try to list the most useful resources for myself - perhaps they will also be useful to you:
"And in the end I will tell…"
If I had originally written myself a plan of action on maternity leave, then, I am convinced, it would be much easier to get out of it, because even trivial things can become a problem over time, if not given them proper attention.
I hope someone my article will be useful, but the tips really come in handy.
It is very interesting, what helped you not to lose yourself in the profession during the decree?
Author: Lena Solovyova, Senior Business Analyst, DoxVision
Do not think that involvement in the process will help to quickly recover. No one will give you time for it. The tasks will fall down with a snowball, they will have to be solved, combining work with raising a child (I mean, the option “I will work on this at home” will not work anymore). So the risks need to be assessed and laid in advance.
Perhaps my simple recommendations and advice will be useful to those who are now on the eve of a wonderful event, but plan to return to their work after the deadline.
')
A few words about yourself
I am a senior business analyst for a product line in a company that develops a document management system and business processes, and also develops related products based on standard functionality. What business analysts do, I think, there is no need to tell.
At the time of leaving on maternity leave, the company worked for about a year and a half, mainly engaged in the design of mobile applications. I liked everything and even succeeded, since there are many great specialists in the company - there are people who have to learn from the experience. It seems that they have just started to notice, they have just started to increase their competence - and now there is already that very moment when we need to think about preserving it and not losing it.
Council number 1. All is well on time!
Naturally, the question arose of how to tell the manager about his plans for the future, because he had plans for me, and they clearly differed from mine. There were a lot of fears, for example, that they would tag you as a “worthless employee” and write them off at the first opportunity or start mentally squeezing them out of the team. Stories are known for various examples ...
However, my boss, unlike those who consider a pregnant woman an incredible burden, and going on maternity leave as an unforgivable betrayal, turned out to be a wise man and even more ... Before the pregnancy, we had agreements on raising me in office, for which a personal development plan. So, despite my interesting position, all our agreements remained in force. Just a month before going on maternity leave, the desired promotion was received, all the goals of the personal development plan were fulfilled.
So my first advice to you is : if before pregnancy you had at least some agreements with your manager regarding your professional growth:
- development plans
- attend professional seminars
- passing courses
- certification,
you should not give them up just because you got pregnant. It is worth reminding the leadership that your development is a mutually beneficial acquisition, because you are certainly going to return.
If everything worked out, then the main thing is not to relax and, roughly speaking, not to score at all before leaving (or else pregnancy, she is such - the anticipation of motherhood begins to suppress the mind of the woman).
Council number 2. Go away beautiful ...
The specificity of the IT sphere is such that you should always be careful with your knowledge base, keep it in the proper order and clearly remember: everything that you impose or fix in the requirements, write in the TZ, etc., should be understandable to anyone your colleague If the fruits of your work cannot be realized and learned, then at a certain moment they will become useless to everyone, and everything will have to be redone again.
Hence the advice : if you want to be welcomed after a maternity leave, as a competent specialist who cares not only about himself, but also about the team, bring all your affairs in order before maternity leave:
- finish all current work to the maximum,
- prepare all the documentation for the product, project, etc. so that it is accessible, understandable and logically organized.
Council number 3. Keep your nose in the wind!
Here you are on a full maternity leave, become a happy mother, it's time to think about yourself beloved.
- How do you want to spend this time?
- Do you want to return to the profession in the near future?
- Is it important for you to grow up as a specialist and not lose the accumulated competence during the long-term vacation?
It was extremely important for me to come back and be “in shape”, but I thought that this form would continue by itself, well, or I will make it closer to the exit. Believe me, this is a deep mistake. It is imperative to monitor everything related to the development of the product with which you work, so as not to ask questions from the series: “Wow, what's this? And this? Have you implemented it too? ”
Hence the third piece of advice : practice shows that during maternity leave, remote access to the workplace is closed (and there is no workplace as such), so be sure to agree with your manager that you will have access to the system where you keep all documentation on product or project. And, of course, try to monitor all changes - this is important.
Council number 4. "I'll be back"
However, to be in illusions that, having given birth to a child, you will improve yourself every day, self-educate or work remotely, and the baby will constantly sleep, occasionally waking up “to eat”, it is highly undesirable, otherwise disappointment awaits. Even elementary to devote time to yourself will begin to turn out not earlier than in six months.
So the fourth piece of advice : do not in any way flaunt or tell your supervisor that your first child is working for you, and you are ready to start it, for example, after a couple of months in remote mode or in some other way. This can result in a conflict situation and broken hopes. Everything has its time ... The first six months - a year to return to the profession, in my opinion, is problematic.
Council number 5. "To find…
Finally, the first difficult and, at the same time, saturated with interesting new events, a year on maternity leave. The child has become more independent, you have more free time, and here it is time to begin to act (although the brain, who is passionate about the profession, will require food after a one-year diet, without any reminders).
The fifth tip is simple : make a plan (without it, as a rule, time management is difficult):
- what competences you have limping, and you would like to pull them up to the required level during maternity leave. For example, foreign languages ​​or plans for a long time stood certification in the professional field?
- What competencies have you lost over the past year (analyze what is forgotten)? You can try joking around somewhere ... historically, this is the best way to understand how competitive you are.
Council number 6. ... and neutralize! ”
What to do with lame and lost competencies after their identification:
- Enroll in advanced training courses
- Attend trainings and seminars
- Read specialized literature
- Watch webinars, video lectures
- Read articles on new trends in IT
- Maybe a little poflans
Here it is necessary to understand that it is possible to attend courses, trainings and seminars only with the presence of grandparents who will gladly help you sit with your child, but even in this case it is not a fact that it will work out. For the entire period of maternity leave, I was not able to allocate time for any in-person activities related to professional development. The reasons are simple - as a rule, if there is a possibility and a desire, then there is no time, or vice versa.
If the overwhelming desire to communicate with colleagues and share knowledge will still prevail over life's difficulties, then I will list a couple of resources where you can learn about meetings, trainings, seminars in the field of business analysis and IT in general:
- vk.com/spb_analytics - St. Petersburg community of analysts, it often hosts interesting meetings
- it-events.com/events - all IT specialists have a well-known resource that allows you to monitor events in the field of IT
- vk.com/analysisbasicskills - seminars on systems and business analysis
- calendar.google.com/calendar/embed?src=e2ucv544qjn7cs1k749sg0e108@group.calendar.google.com&ctz=Europe/Moscow - analyst meeting calendar
But I only welcomed any remote or extramural self-education: basically, I “surfed the expanses” of the Internet during the child’s daytime sleep, or at night if there were strength left. I will try to list the most useful resources for myself - perhaps they will also be useful to you:
- vk.com/business_analysis_iiba - group for business analysis and BI in Russia. It always contains the latest information on trends in our area. Also posted a lot of useful books, articles and videos.
- uml3.ru - UML library
- www.bainr.ru/index.html - a very useful resource dedicated to business analysis
- iiba.ru - Business Analysis Knowledge Base
- telegram.me/spbcoachanel - BA / SA analytics channel
"And in the end I will tell…"
If I had originally written myself a plan of action on maternity leave, then, I am convinced, it would be much easier to get out of it, because even trivial things can become a problem over time, if not given them proper attention.
I hope someone my article will be useful, but the tips really come in handy.
It is very interesting, what helped you not to lose yourself in the profession during the decree?
Author: Lena Solovyova, Senior Business Analyst, DoxVision
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/323822/
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