Building My Performance Review Dashboard
A simple tool for tracking and reflecting on professional growth and accomplishments.
I built a dashboard to help track and reflect on my professional journey. Like many developers, I've found that our daily work - the commits, the PRs, the tickets - doesn't always capture the full story of our impact and growth. This is my attempt to bridge that gap.
The Purpose
Performance reviews should be more than just a recap of completed tickets. They're opportunities to understand our growth, recognize patterns in our work, and plan our future development. While Jira captures the what and when of our work, it often misses the why and how - the context that makes our contributions meaningful.
The challenge isn't just gathering data; it's transforming that data into insights that tell the story of our professional journey. This is particularly important as engineering leaders, where our impact often extends beyond code into areas like mentorship, architectural decisions, and team processes.
The Solution
I wanted something straightforward but powerful - a dashboard that could organize work data in a way that prompts meaningful reflection. The core idea was simple: take Jira data, organize it by quarter, and use AI to help identify patterns and themes in the work.
The dashboard does a few key things:
- Organizes tickets and projects by quarter for a clear timeline
- Highlights major initiatives and their impact
- Tracks delivery metrics to show patterns
- Uses AI to identify themes and suggest areas of growth
- Prompts reflection on both technical and non-technical contributions
How It Works
The workflow is intentionally simple. Upload your Jira export, and the dashboard transforms raw ticket data into a structured view of your professional journey. Quarter by quarter, you can see not just what you delivered, but how your focus and impact evolved over time.
What makes this different from just scrolling through Jira is the emphasis on narrative. The AI-assisted analysis helps connect dots between different projects, identifying patterns in your work and areas of growing expertise. It's not just about what tickets you closed - it's about the story those tickets tell about your professional growth.
The Tech
I kept the technical stack clean and effective, focusing on tools that would get the job done without unnecessary complexity:
Next.js provides the framework, giving us a solid foundation for both the frontend interface and API routes. Recharts handles the visualization layer, turning our data into clear, meaningful graphics. The AI layer, powered by OpenAI, helps identify patterns and generate insights that might not be immediately obvious from the raw data.
The entire system is built to be maintainable and extensible. As our needs evolve and we identify new ways to analyze the data, we can easily add new views and insights.
What Works Well
After using this for my own reviews, I've found the most valuable aspects aren't the fancy features - they're the simple things that prompt deeper reflection. The quarterly breakdowns help identify growth patterns. The project groupings show how individual tickets contributed to larger initiatives. The AI insights often highlight contributions that might have been overlooked.
The key was focusing on what matters: clear accomplishments, project impact, team contributions, and professional development. Everything else is just supporting detail.
The Impact
The real value of this dashboard isn't in automating the performance review process - it's in changing how we think about our work. Instead of scrambling to remember what we did last quarter, we can focus on understanding patterns in our work and planning for future growth.
It transforms the review process from a retrospective exercise into a tool for ongoing professional development. Each quarter builds on the last, creating a clearer picture of our journey and impact.
What's Next
Looking forward, there are several thoughtful additions that could make this even more valuable:
Direct Jira integration would streamline the data gathering process. Enhanced project context could help better understand the impact of our work. Team perspectives could help capture collaborative achievements and mentorship.
But the core focus remains the same: helping us understand and articulate our professional growth and impact.
Why This Matters
Every professional should have tools that help them understand and articulate their journey. This isn't just about performance reviews - it's about ongoing professional development and growth.
By making it easier to track and reflect on our work, we can be more intentional about our growth and more effective in sharing our impact with others.
Notes
The technical implementation was straightforward:
- Next.js for the application framework
- OpenAI for pattern recognition and insights
- Recharts for data visualization
- Simple CSV processing for data ingestion
The initial version took just a couple of days to build, but like any good tool, it keeps evolving as we learn more about what makes performance reviews truly valuable.
Sometimes the best tools aren't the most complex - they're the ones that help us see the bigger picture and tell our story more effectively.