This document provides tips for career planning in IT architecture. It advises the reader to consider what success means to them in terms of title, compensation, job satisfaction, impact, work-life balance, and job security. The document also recommends setting goals based on leveraging one's strengths, practicing key skills under challenging conditions, continuous learning, focus, and relationship management. It then discusses using a "business model" approach to define one's value proposition, customers, channels, activities, resources, partners, costs, and revenue. Key takeaways include focusing on customer needs, using architecture skills to add value, showing value through work, keeping the customer first, and progressing by taking hard decisions.

1. Career Planning
Some tips and tricks to planning your career in IT Architecture

2. Where to start?
• 2 key questions I ask myself?
 How do I want to measure my career success?
 Title?
 Package?
 Job Satisfaction?
 Impact?
 Work Life Balance?
 Job Security?
 What are the key principles that underpin
my attaining success?
 Ability to leverage my unique strengths
 Regular opportunity to practice my key
skills under challenging conditions
 Ability to continuously learn and develop
 Ability to focus on what is most important
for me
 Ability to successfully manage the key
relationships in my life

3. Goal Setting
•Not so importantTitle?
•Needs to be fairPackage?
•Must haveJob Satisfaction?
•Cherry on topImpact?
•ImportantWork Life Balance?
•Should followJob Security?

4. My career
principles
Leverage Unique
Strengths?
Strategic Thinker
IT Environment/Change Management
Extrovert communicator
Practice
Need to work hard to get the right
work. Without that it is so much
harder to get better in the areas you
want to get better.
Learn
You learn most from
•Taking risks
•Failing
Focus
How to avoid distractions?
•Be clear on your goals – that takes time –
career coaching really helps.
•Learn to say no (where you have the choice)
Relationship
Management
You must understand the other persons needs
if you have any chance of them helping you
with yours.
Lots of coffee

5. My Approach – Business Model Me
My Value Proposition My Customers
Relationship
Mgt
Channels
Key Activities
Key Resources
My Partners
My Costs My Revenue

6. Current State – Business Model Me
My Value Proposition
Stuff I can do:
Business Technology Strategy e.g
• Business Capability Modelling
• Ability to learn a domain
• Business Modelling
• Roadmap Management
Design e.g.
• Requirements Analysis
• Views & Viewpoints
Quality Attributes e.g.
• Service Level Design
IT Environment Expertise e.g.
• IT Process Expertise – Run & Change
• Portfolio Management
Human Dynamics Competence e.g.
• Ability to engage competently with wide
range of stakeholders.
• Understand and translate their needs as
required.
My Customers
Who should benefit most
from what I do?
1. My Boss
2. My Boss’s Boss
3. My Boss’s “Customers”
Relationship
Mgt
Set up Recurring
Process:
Here’s what I’ve done for
you lately
Am I doing what you
need?
Stop? Start? Continue?
Channels
Documents/ Reports
/Models
Presentations
Workshops
Portfolios
Web Site Content
E-Mail
Meetings
Key Activities
Plan
Do
Review
Report
Key Resources
Enterprise Data
Relationships
Models, Models, Models
Processes
My Partners
Google
IASA
IASA Community
Gartner
Conferences
ITIL
TOGAF
Books
My Costs
My time & attention
My Revenue
Pay / Days Worked? Is it enough?

7. Applying “Business Model Me”
(with real world examples)
Who are my
customers?
1
What are their needs?
In detail. Constantly
checking.
2
Make yourself useful
… but use your
architecture toolkit to
do it a way that adds
more value.
3
Show by doing if and
where possible
4
And remember –
customer first
5

8. Key Takeaways
1
The customer is
always right (even
when they are
not!).
2
If you are doing
what they need
you to do they may
not care how you
do it (not always
though )
3
Sometimes you
have the wrong
customer … and
that can be really
hard to fix
4
If you make your
customer happy
using your unique
IT architect skills
they will want
more of the same
and you won’t
have to ask.
5
Make your
customers
successful and you
will be in demand
by other, possibly
more senior,
customers.
6
You may need to
take some hard
decisions to
progress. It’s not
easy!