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I am asking because I would like to describe this as an achievement on my resume.

I will use an analogy to simplify my story:

I have a team of graphic designers and we get more and more requests but cannot hire more staff. I recognize that some on the team have an interest in programming, so I ask them to learn programming and see if they can implement any ideas to improve our situation.

A few months later, they come up with a program that automated some of the design creation (effectively increasing output per person by over 400%!).

Of course they hadn't become professional software engineers, but learned quite enough so they could significantly benefit to our productivity.

At the moment I put them on specialist courses for our sector, which means they will have even more skills. They are also working on improving the tools and building more applications to help our team specifically.

The "official" programming/it team is completely uninvolved.

Is there a more formal/managerial/technical way to describe what we achieved, or the process in general?

"Upskilled graphic designers with programming, resulting in process optimizations that led to 400% increase in productivity"... something like that?

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  • Do you want to put this in your cv or your graphic designers?
    – Kevin
    Jun 12, 2014 at 12:31

1 Answer 1

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If I understand correctly, developing automation tools was not something you did, but it was done by a graphic designer working for you. And you want to be recognized on your resume for taking initiative to increase productivity of your team by allowing members of your team gain necessary skills.

Say exactly as you said to us, without inventing words like "upskilled". Something like:

  • To increase productivity of my team, I identified members with programming skills. They developed custom tools to automate XYZ steps in our design process. This increased team productivity by 400% with no changes in budget.

Basically you want to show you are able to solve problems by thinking out of the box and empowering your team. All good stuff.

Edit: Thinking a bit more, even more powerful would be to turn paragraph around and start with the accomplishment:

  • Increased team productivity by 400% with no changes in budget by [allowing/empowering] team members with programming skills to develop custom tools to automate XYZ steps in our design process.
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  • @Jumbo747 - if answer is satisfactory, good custom is to accept it. It is also faster that writing "thank you" comment :-)
    – Peter M. - stands for Monica
    Jun 12, 2014 at 20:28
  • done.. but will this prevent other replies?
    – Jumbo747
    Jun 12, 2014 at 21:04
  • I see. You may be hoping for other different replies, and you are right If there is accepted answer unlikely someone will write another competing one. But as you noted, there was no flurry of competing answers, and I believe your case is pretty straightforward. Simple English is the best.
    – Peter M. - stands for Monica
    Jun 12, 2014 at 22:35

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