General
A career development plan gives you purpose. Socialize your plan with your manager, even if the person not doing the plan is your manager - your manager normally knows the opportunities available. Teams and careers are dynamic - we do not go into a job expecting you will be there for the rest of your life. We need to embrace people making a value contribution while they are here, and celebrate their contribution when they leave.
How to structure your plan
Have short term goals and long term goals.
There are tons of things to do in short term goals - meetups, cops, etc Medium term & long term goals are generally focussed at moving to a new role
There is a message risk in making long term goals a role, Have a north star - a role that you are aiming for (i.e. being a HOD) but a north star not a goal Once you have a north star identify the skills to achieve the north star Then set goals to develop skills Every single goal that you have in your career development plan should be focussed on developing skills
When you start documenting your process you sometimes may make a sideways move to make the next move easier (QA to Dev Lead vs BA to Dev Lead story)
How often do you have career conversations > you should drive career conversations, not your manager.
Identify skills needed in a role Identify skills gaps from others you work with to identify skills you need to develop
Showing emotions
Consider the model the experience cube
- Observing, Thinking, Wanting, Feeling
It is not uncommon in engineering to be rational and want data sets. Everytime you have a conversation with someone you structure it around the 4 elements of the experience cube.
Outcomes
- Think about your career goals and create your first draft. If unsure, discuss with your manager;
- Schedule a career conversation with your manager to discuss progress and/or receive feedback;
- Put together a career development plan for next catch up
- Review all previous actions from last mentoring session
- Read up on experience cube (keithdwalker.ca)
- Being in someone’s succession plan, have you had a discussion with Mike about that, speak with the people in those roles
- Aim for a draft to present to Alex