As the year winds down, many of us find ourselves immersed in personal retrospectives (I just published one myself!), reflecting on our current roles, jobs, and the paths we tread. It's a time when questions about career trajectories and the value of our work come to the fore. This moment of introspection often leads to pondering one of the most critical yet overlooked aspects of professional life: the true nature of the trade-off we're making in our jobs.
Read MoreLet´s assume you are a Product Manager and you know or have figured out what your next best development topic is (e.g. by using the PMwheel) you then should come up with something I would call a development plan. Something that helps you commit to small actions that get you closer to the competent product management personality you want to become.
The future-self framework takes the form of a document that you need to fill, and it has four parts: As-Is, To-Be, Actions and a Timeframe.
Read MoreI have created the PMwheel back in 2016 to give my coaching sessions with PMs from all over the globe some more structure and I am using it ever since in my work with my clients.
And I figured out that it is a framework that many of my former coachees are still using long after they have left the initial company. They, in this case, are mainly using it as a tool for self-assessment in times where there is no line-manager helping them with their personal growth. It became a compass for many people that helps them navigate their product career. So I have decided to share it with a much bigger audience to help even more people with it.
Read MoreBack in 2016, I was working with the product organization of a larger tech company. They asked me to help every product manager on the team “understand the role of the product manager better,” and to help the product managers understand what “better” would actually look like.
This was not an easy challenge and, although I had a certain take on what product managers should be responsible for, I lacked a clear framework—an assessment that I could have discussed with the individual product manager in one of our coaching sessions.
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