Project Manage your Career

Good advice from CommPro blog on tuning up your career management skills for 2012.  Many of us have heard these things before.  It's a good reminder to review.  The difference is putting these items in action and pushing for results in these domains.

I made my own list building off theirs


1. Take responsibility.  - Don't blame the previous assignee, other teams, or factors.  Just get it done.

2. Have a career strategy.  - technical vs management, long-term vs short-term

3. Your goals vs. company’s goals. - are they complimentary?  the harmonious place will be where both benefit from the results of shared or compatible goals

4. Know your customer. - In-house, horizontal, cross-business functional, etc.  Understand their demands, industry constraints, competition.  For example, if your customer is the FedGov, it's focused on Affordability

5. Publish. - Gold-star journal is the goal, but there are other mediums that can help with career progression.  An endorsement, a write-up for a volunteer activity, department newsletter, speak on a topic.

6. Be a team-player.  - Yes, it's still relevant; probably now more than ever given a smaller workforce and the inability for a maverick approach to "go it alone."

7. Be multi-functional.  - The "analyst" role seems to be expanding as organizations "do more with less staff."  For techies, learn the business-side of the house in a Technical Program Manager role; for business leaders, consider building up new skills such as cloud computing, columnar/in-memory databases.

8. Volunteer to develop your skills.  - Participate in student development competitions, exchange study program materials with co-workers, seek out grants, and scholarship funding.  Teach.

9. Mentor.  - Another buzzword.  Consider mentoring with colleagues at the peer level.  Set up monthly exchanges with a trusted group of peers and help each other.

10. Network, network, network.  - Dale Carnegie. 'nuff said

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