Myths and Paradigms
- A career is not just about strategizing and playing the game anymore; it’s about understanding the culture and thriving in it.
- Carriers are not about laddering up and following the crowd; it’s about climbing in all different ways and doing it your way.
- A career is not a path with specific milestones, pit stops, speed limits, etc.; it’s about setting a course and navigating to your favorite destinations.
- Career growth is not dependent on your manager or managing up; it’s about how your circle of influence, peers, skips, and mentors know you, the real you.
- Career growth is not about doing a lot of things all the time, it’s about doing what you love and loving what you do.
- Career growth is not about navigating jungles and handling turbulence; it is about investing time, driving impact, and bringing people along.
Technical Program Management (TPM)
- TPM blends process, product, and engineering management into one space.
- TPM is a fascinating space that allows for career growth.
- TPM is a combination of process, product, and engineering management.
Challenges and Opportunities in Technology Roles
- Technical Program Management blends process, product, and engineering management into one space.
- The different roles in technology can be applied to the type of career growth that one wants.
- Technical skills can range from practical skills to expert technical skills.
- Product skills are foundational and fundamental regardless of the type of roles that one plays.
- Domain skills can vary and be applied to different domains such as healthcare or climate change.
- Career growth can be achieved by rotating roles across domains and trying different combinations of process, product, technical program, and engineering management.
Career Growth through Cultivating Networks
- Career growth happens through your circle of influence, peers, skips, and mentors knowing the real you.
- Cultivating networks is important for career growth.
- The speaker introduces a paradigm called ninja spiders and forests, which he will explain later.
- Career growth is dependent on doing what you love and loving what you do.
- Investing time, driving impact, and bringing people along are fundamental to career growth.
- Career growth happens through your circle of influence, peers, skips, and mentors knowing the real you.
- Fulfilling the performance management system in one’s company or wherever one works is essential for career growth.
- Aligning with how one is doing and things will naturally and automatically follow through and help with one’s career.
- It is important to take charge of your career and not rely solely on your manager to manage it.
- If you think your manager is managing your career, you should think again.
Cultivating your brand
- Cultivating your brand is important to career growth
- It involves knowing who you are and who you want to be
- Technical program management is an area that requires specialization
- You can be a fixer, builder, connector, or scaler, depending on your skills and interests
- Developing your persona and brand helps in career growth
- You can switch between different roles or go deep into a particular role to become a specialist
What growth and success means
- Growth and success mean different things in today’s workplace
- There are myths and paradigms that need to be addressed
- Career options and technology roles need to be considered
- Growth needs sponsors, spaces and skills to nourish an individual’s career
- Sponsors are individuals who invest in an individual’s potential and problems
- Spaces are problems that an individual is invested in and knows well
- Skills are attributes that are required for an individual to grow
- Mentoring circles, managers, and self-reflection help in finding sponsors, spaces and skills
- Success demands knowing your potential, finding your purpose, developing your skills and infusing passion
- Turbo-boosting your core performance leads to landing impact and growing a group of heroes around you
- Cultivating your network helps in building a cohesive group of people around you
- Telling your story and tracking the trends helps in being successful
Networks
- Networks are important for career growth
- Successful music production requires an ecosystem of players
- Cultivation of networks is important for a successful ecosystem
- Successful technology product shipping requires an ecosystem of players
- Cultivating your network is important for successful product shipping
Importance of having a great product team
- Knowing the product score is important.
- There are parallels between shipping great products and music.
- To ship a great product, a great product team is necessary.
- Becoming a great product manager requires investment in sponsors and engaged mentors.
- Terrific teammates and committed partners are also important.
- A great team is necessary to achieve more in one’s career.
- Coaches are extremely important in our lives and can see in us what we can’t see ourselves.
- Being on a great team is more important than just having a great manager.
- Understanding the culture and knowing what actually matters is important.
Simplified career management
- Career ladders are ancient.
- Career management is more about growth rather than laddering up or down.
- Building relationships with peers, mentors, and well-wishers is important.
You manage your career
- The speaker emphasizes that it’s up to each person to manage their own career.
- Your career is like a tree – it’s your responsibility to nurture and grow it.
- The speaker uses the metaphor of a tiny quarkus rubus sapling growing into a strong oak tree to illustrate the growth of one’s career.
- The speaker explains that your strong oak tree of a career can now nourish the micro-resolved Forest that it lives in.
- This means that you can use your experience and expertise to help others grow in their careers.
- By nurturing your own career, you can also create a positive impact on the industry as a whole.