Career Planning Step 3 - Roadmap

This post is the fourth of a six-part series dedicated to career planning. In the first post I outlined the five steps of the career planning process. Step 1 outlined the self reflection required to define who your are and your personal brand promise. Step 2 then described the strategic framework to properly assess potential markets for your services and target a defined market.  This post outlines the best practices to document your career aspirations and roadmap.

Documenting your career aspirations and the roadmap of roles throughout your career must align with your personal brand profile and the target market.  Picture a series of connected jobs throughout time that lead you to a planned destination.  While the route to this destination may not be direct, the journey must be thoughtful and planned otherwise you will reach a destination but it may not be the one you intended. There is always a bit of luck, timing and influences that shape career progression but you must know the destination and how and when to get on the right bus.  The career roadmap includes both a high-level aspiration summary of your direction and the potential roles that enable you to develop and deepen the core competencies you identified in Step 2. 

Career Aspiration Summary

Summarize your aspirations at a high-level that describe your direction and what you are looking to accomplish throughout your career.  I have found it easier to first outline your detailed roadmap and then summarize the key points that make it easy for your manager or key members of your personal board of directors (more on that topic to come) to understand your career strategy and gain their support.  My personal career plan describes aspirations for the current and next year, and then what I envision for 3-5 and 10 years out. 

Role Roadmap

This is the fun and creative part of Step 3.  Successful careers are "guided" by a thoughtful strategy and realized by the series roles you experience throughout time. I use a Visio visual to represent the roadmap that outlines the potential roles that I want to pursue to develop competencies and gain experiences that build upon each other to achieve success in the target market.  This progression should ultimately move you toward a destination. 

One of the benefits of this one-page diagram is that it enables you to easily discuss your career plan with the stakeholders that are required to support your plan.  Be creative and do not limit your yourself to roles that are within your comfort zone.

The roadmap is supported by many important aspects that must be documented for each of the roles in the roadmap (Word template):

• Timeline: define the start and end date for the role.
• Profession/Discipline: define the profession and discipline within the profession. Many companies often have a defined taxonomy such as "Marketing" as a profession and "Product Management" as a discipline within the profession.  The target market should be used to inform the role you have identified.
• Title/Level: define the role title if known and the level (this could be an individual contributor, manager, director, VP, etc.)
• Organization: define the target company and organization for this role.  This can be fairly general or specific (an example for my current target organization is: Microsoft > Information Technology > Solution Delivery > Connected Sales and Marketing).
• Development Option: identify the development option for this role such as lateral, growing within the current role, new to role, moving up vertically, growing in breadth by experiencing a role within a new profession or function.
• Description: Describe the high-level responsibilities of the role.
• Goals and Experiences to be Gained: this section is super important.  Be clear on your goals and the experiences to be gained in this role. Define what you want out of this role to be sure the role you interview for and ultimately select can enable these.  For example, one of the goals for my current role is "People Leadership - establish credibility as a manager and leader at Microsoft".  I then outlined all of the experiences and outcomes I want to achieve to support this goal.    
• Definition of Success: we all measure success in different ways - clearly describe what success looks like by the end of this role.
• Competency Focus Areas: a competency is the ability to perform a specific task or function successfully. Define what competencies your are intending to develop in this role.  These are the competencies that will be the source of your competitive advantage in the marketplace.  Many companies have a defined taxonomy (e.g., developing people, technical excellence).
• Relationships Required: we all need relationships to help support our aspirations and this is one critical area that you must think about by identifying the relationships required to get this role as well as be successful in the role.  The list should include specific people by name and role. One of the best relationship building resources is Never Eat Alone: And Other Secrets to Success, One Relationship at a Time.  
• Transition Requirements: each role likely requires specific experience, competencies or accomplishments to effectively transition into this role.  Identify these requirements as well as any blockers that my exist to prevent a transition into this role.

After completing this exercise you will have an aspiration summary, career roadmap and the details for each of the potential roles.  Next we will look at how to create a career development plan and explore techniques to support advancing the essential competencies for differentiating yourself in the job market.