In the competitive software industry, if you don’t keep yourself updated, soon you’ll be outdated. Yet when swamped with hundreds of concepts, methods and techniques, it is impossible to be updated continually. There is also a risk of, being updated in a soon-to-be outdated area.
Whether lucky or smart, I’ve always worked on challenging, well-paying and emerging concepts & tools. Having reached a certain stage in my career, I’m preparing for the next stage. I’ve followed ‘learn-do-refine’ model which has worked pretty well so far. With that foundation, here is my learning model for the next stage.
My learning model is of two layers – a core layer, domains in which I want to be an expert and a support layer, domains which will help me to practice my expertise effectively.
Enterprise Architecture
Many-a-times, those in software industry asks, ‘I have an answer. Do you have a relevant question?’. But successful (read profit making) companies are those that solve a business problem by engaging technology. EA brings this success story as a practice. I’m excited to learn about EA and possibly apply those concepts in the coming years.
Customer Relationship Management
CRM covers topics such as finding new customers, selling more to existing customers, and retaining customers. Now-a-days, CRM is considered relevant even for government organizations. I’ve been in CRM domain for the past 8 years and I’ve enjoyed both functional and implementation sides. I would like to continue to learn how CRM concepts help companies (and even governments) to be profitable.
People Skills
Executive educator, Marshall Goldsmith, says in ‘What got you here won’t get you there‘, that most of executive’s challenges are ‘people related’. To achieve anything significant, there needs to be a team (composed of seniors, peers, and juniors) and it is important to develop people skills to work with and with-in teams. Having been a asocial introvert, I find that this part of the pie is the most frustrating and emotionally draining; yet a critical part to be successful.
Project Management
I would broadly term this part as ‘Getting things done’ – the execution part of the deal. I’ve worked with some of the brilliant minds who are able to place best ideas on the table, but lack what it takes to get it done. Though I like to conceptualize a solution and communicate it with enthusiasm to others, I find it satisfying to get it executed – not really bothering about who gets the credit. You know what? When you get into that attitude, you almost always get the credit!
Financial Management
This is one area where I need to start from scratch. Executives translate every action in the organization into numbers – either profit or loss. It is poor financial management that has gotten the erstwhile famous companies into bankruptcy.
…and some fun
Another critical piece to continue enjoying other pieces. Though I don’t expect to be Ansel Adams or Mark Twain or Michael Phelps, I like to pursue photography, travel, writing and swimming as they joyfully refresh the soul.
Do you have a learning model? Do you think it is worth having one and pursuing it? Feel free to share your comments.
An interesting approach to deal with professional challenges. As for me I don’t quite follow a learning model as such. Atleast not consciously. I believe the only thing which I do and I guess has worked for me to a certain extent is to keep myself open for anything with respect to environment or ideas. And one thing which is of paramount importance is to keep abreast with the latest ‘in’ things in fields of technology. A detailed insight is not necessary a brief overview would be enough.
There are a few factors that would need to be considered. These either happen due to sustained focus or sheer luck, whichever direction your career takes you. In my opinion this is the most substantive factor that would influence your learning model – I mean those things where you would want to make a money for your living.
Any good model should consider the realities of the environment that finally support sustenance. One in which the customer wants something and the other where there is a drive within a given organization to align with what group(s) of customers would want. At the end of the day it would all boil down to how money would be spent and how much money each of the players want to make.
An individuals learning, therefore, gets bounded by these factors and any so called model that supports career development would finally hover around the opportuntities that are generated around those who want to consume and those attempting to fulfill such consumption requirements. Everything else as you have rightly observed is just for fun ….. in other words, purely academic.
However given today’s complex needs, the canvas becomes pretty large, so much so, that there is significant opportunity to draw out a unique blend of how different consumers and suppliers would be involved with and within this space try to chalk out something that is broad enough as well as certain unique things, which as a combination would provide the ability to take up marketplace opportunities and also align it with what an individual is interested to do. Obviously the cycles are going to be long – say 6 to 8 years.
If I were to look back at my career over the last couple plus decades, the cycle time more or less seems to be true. In retrospect this cycle time seems to correspond, on average, the time that one takes to reach the next stage of maturity and starts looking for a change. So the model is subject to swings; that get severly influenzed by the position of the individual at a specific point in their careers in relation to the supplier-consumer cycle. This has again been true for me.
But at the end of the day, it is how much of value that you are able to add to your customer that really matters. Does your model support this?
I vividly recall the dialogue between Alice and the cat from ‘Alice in Wonderland’:-
Alice: Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?
Cat: That depends a good deal on where you want to get to
Alice: I don’t much care where.
Cat: Then it doesn’t much matter which way you go.
Alice: …so long as I get somewhere.
Cat: Oh, you’re sure to do that, if only you walk long enough.
If you were to follow the advise of the cat and walk long enough (i.e. with a sustained focus) you are sure to find something real good as well!!
A few words of wisdom from me ‘keep a tab on the consumer and the supplier’ whatever be the model that you want to follow.
Its quite interesting… I havent seen anyone so well organized and planned.. You are really an inspiration.
Interesting.
In my understanding, you seem to have a conceptual, design-centric view of learning.
You might want to read on Charles T Munger and his ‘latticework of mental models’ needed for worldly wisdom. This guy is just mind blowing IMO.
In my view you shouldn’t have a fixed learning model defined by boundries.
My arguments follow…
1) The moment you put a learning model you are putting boundries(Reffer the model) to the various opportunities thown up by life uncertanities.
2)The challenge in the Information Industry ( Not Software industry) is in synthesing information in a way that others cannot. Most of the people have access to the internet.Then why do some people appear smart then others
3) If at all I would choose to refer to your model then instead of having fixed modele with three layers I might have 3 dynamic layers. as and when I grow I would discard the core and compress the adjustent shell as the new core.
All this depends on what is your concept of Growth.If you concept of growth is Technocrat the above model might help. But if you are looking are rising up the ladder the inner CORE has to perish at some point or other.