Career Development Planning

Owning the direction yourself, in a plan loose enough to survive an industry that moves.

A career plan is a working hypothesis about what you want to be able to do, and what you'd need to do next to get there. Two failure modes sit on either side of it. One is having no plan and letting the organization's needs decide — which works until the organization's needs change. The other is a plan specified so precisely that any deviation reads as failure, in a field where the interesting roles in five years may not have names yet. The useful middle is directional: a clear sense of the capability you're building and what would develop it, held loosely enough that a sideways opportunity registers as an opportunity rather than a detour.

Scenarios

You're offered a lateral move into a team doing work that's becoming central to the company. What would you do — hold out for a role with a step up in it, or take the move because of what you'd be able to do afterwards?

Your manager asks where you want to be in three years and you don't know. What would you do — give a plausible answer about the next rung, or say you don't know and ask to try two things that would help you find out?

A genuinely interesting opportunity appears that isn't on your plan. What would you do — decline to stay on track, or treat the plan as a hypothesis your new information just updated?

Takeaway

Plan toward a capability, not a title. Titles are priced differently at every company; what you can do travels.
Ask for the work you want, specifically and early. Most interesting assignments were requested, not allocated.
Treat lateral and depth moves as real options. One axis is a model of progress, not a fact about it.
Hold the plan loosely enough to update. A deviation is usually information, not failure.
Check the scope behind the label before negotiating for the label.