The document discusses the importance of personal growth frameworks for career development among software professionals, emphasizing that individuals are responsible for their own professional growth. It outlines a simple process for personal growth, encouraging goal-setting, feedback, and continued learning in various skill areas. The piece also highlights resources and notable statistics illustrating the benefits of companies investing in employee development.

1. Take Control f
your Career
with a Personal Growth Framework
@aaronjrandall

2. InfoQ.com: News & Community Site
Watch the video with slide
synchronization on InfoQ.com!
https://www.infoq.com/presentations/
personal-growth-framework/
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Portuguese)
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Architecture and The Engineering Culture Podcast, with a focus on building
• 96 deep dives on innovative topics packed as downloadable emags and
minibooks
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3. Purpose of QCon
- to empower software development by facilitating the spread of
knowledge and innovation
Strategy
- practitioner-driven conference designed for YOU: influencers of
change and innovation in your teams
- speakers and topics driving the evolution and innovation
- connecting and catalyzing the influencers and innovators
Highlights
- attended by more than 12,000 delegates since 2007
- held in 9 cities worldwide
Presented at QCon London
www.qconlondon.com

4. Take Control f
your Career
with a Personal Growth Framework
@aaronjrandall

5. Take Control f
your Career
with a Personal Growth Framework
@aaronjrandall

6. Why are we here?
@aaronjrandall

7. Why are we here?
@aaronjrandall

8. Investing in yourself & your
professional development
@aaronjrandall

9. Learning is fun!
Get better at your job
Build better things
Ever-changing industry
Machine learning
Ruby .NET
A.I.
Blockchain
JavaBig data SQL
Go JS
HTML
CSS
Progression & recognition
@aaronjrandall

10. Belonging
Improvement
Choice
Equality
Predictability
Significance
https://www.palomamedina.com/biceps/@aaronjrandall

11. Improvement
Progress towards purpose
working towards an important goal
Personal growth
fast growth in skills that matter to you
@aaronjrandall

12. what are my goals?
how am I getting there?
What are you focussing on right
now to grow professionally?
@aaronjrandall

13. @aaronjrandall

14. @aaronjrandall

15. *bump*
ouch
@aaronjrandall

16. Technical
skills
@aaronjrandall

17. Learning is an investment,
your time is valuable
@aaronjrandall

18. There’s gotta be
a better way!
@aaronjrandall

19. @aaronjrandall

20. @aaronjrandall

21. Comms
Mentorship
Technical
skills
Delivery
Emotional
intelligence
Leadership
Business
knowledge
@aaronjrandall

22. Comms
skills
this is the
thing I’m going
to focus on to
get better
@aaronjrandall

23. Intentionality
@aaronjrandall

24. How do you find
y ur light-switch?
@aaronjrandall

25. “you own your professional
development – not your
company, not your manager –
you”
Maria Gutierrez, Head of Engineering at Intercom
yeah, me
@aaronjrandall

26. Let’s talk about
Growth Framew rks
@aaronjrandall

27. Hands up if your company has a
growth framework (or similar)?
@aaronjrandall

28. What the flip is a
Growth Framework?
@aaronjrandall

29. A process that helps answer the question
“How do I progress
in my career?”
@aaronjrandall

30. https://www.progression.fyi/
they do!
@aaronjrandall

31. How do they work?
skills
roles
@aaronjrandall

32. @aaronjrandall

33. @aaronjrandall

34. @aaronjrandall

35. A process that helps answer the question
“How do I progress
in my career?”
Hi, I’m Sam!*
*Sam is not real@aaronjrandall

36. @aaronjrandall

37. Leadership
Mentorship
Technical Skills
Communication
Emotional Intelligence
Delivery
Business Knowledge
Leadership
Mentorship
Technical Skills
Communication
Emotional Intelligence
Delivery
Business Knowledge
@aaronjrandall

38. Leadership
Mentorship
Technical Skills
Communication
Emotional Intelligence
Delivery
Business Knowledge
@aaronjrandall

39. Growth Frameworks are great, but
what if your company
doesn’t have one?
@aaronjrandall

40. Your light-switch:
@aaronjrandall

41. Your light-switch:
A Personal Growth Framew rk
@aaronjrandall

42. Personal Growth Framework
sounds fancy, but it isn’t
golly gosh, where
did I leave my
personal growth
framework?@aaronjrandall

43. Personal is good
old company new company
Spans roles & companies
More invested
@aaronjrandall

44. How it works
@aaronjrandall

45. Simple process + time + focus
stealing the
best bits from
Growth Frameworks
@aaronjrandall

46. Simple process + time + focus
Set some time aside,
be deliberate
@aaronjrandall

47. 1 hour, 1 page, 5 steps
@aaronjrandall

48. @aaronjrandall

49. @aaronjrandall

50. Define your North Star
– What do you really want to accomplish, and why?
– Think bigger picture
– What’s the next big thing you really want to achieve in your career?
I want to continue growing as a TL because I’m new to the role, and from working with
other TLs I know there’s more I can do to empower my team and grow my confidence.

51. What’s going well
– Warm up your brain
– Identify some things you’re going to want to keep doing
Supporting & upskilling junior developers
Communicating well with the PM & DL
Prioritising & tackling meaningful tech debt

52. What could be going better
– Warm up your brain some more
– Identify some areas of opportunity
Communication to the wider company
Checking in with devs & setting expectations
Estimating (is hard!)

53. Dig into your skills
Good architectural understanding – know how all the moving pieces of tech in our
ecosystem fit together
Good reasoning about how much to invest in e.g. writing tests
– Not just tech: Technical Skills, Communication, and Leadership
– Find inspiration in your job spec, other job specs, your peers, etc
Keep more on top of what’s going on in the industry, from a tech and process
perspective
7

54. Good architectural understanding – know how all the moving pieces of tech in our
ecosystem fit together
Good reasoning about how much to invest in e.g. writing tests
Keep more on top of what’s going on in the industry, from a tech and process
perspective
7
Good at articulating the value of a piece of work to developers
Asking for clarity when unsure of goals or scope of work
Sometimes go all around the houses to explain something
Address lack of communication with the wider team (e.g. more visibility on why we
are making certain tech decisions) 7

55. perspective
7
Good at articulating the value of a piece of work to developers
Asking for clarity when unsure of goals or scope of work
Sometimes go all around the houses to explain something
Address lack of communication with the wider team (e.g. more visibility on why we
are making certain tech decisions) 7
Pairing and mentoring more junior developers in my team
Addressing concerns about our process
Improve business knowledge so I can make better decisions for our team
Have more of a hold on what pieces of work are on the roadmap 5

56. Pairing and mentoring more junior developers in my team
Addressing concerns about our process
Improve business knowledge so I can make better decisions for our team
Have more of a hold on what pieces of work are on the roadmap 5
Set goals
– Make goals measurable & achievable
– See rework.withgoogle.com/subjects/goal-setting/
– Aim for about 3 months to achieve goals

57. Good architectural understanding – know how all the moving pieces of tech in our
ecosystem fit together
Good reasoning about how much to invest in e.g. writing tests
Keep more on top of what’s going on in the industry, from a tech and process
perspective
7
Good at articulating the value of a piece of work to developers
Asking for clarity when unsure of goals or scope of work
Sometimes go all around the houses to explain something
Address lack of communication with the wider team (e.g. more visibility on why we
are making certain tech decisions) 7
Pairing and mentoring more junior developers in my team
Addressing concerns about our process
Improve business knowledge so I can make better decisions for our team
Have more of a hold on what pieces of work are on the roadmap 5

58. Pairing and mentoring more junior developers in my team
Addressing concerns about our process
Improve business knowledge so I can make better decisions for our team
Have more of a hold on what pieces of work are on the roadmap 5
Pairing and mentoring more junior developers in my team
Addressing concerns about our process
Improve business knowledge so I can make better decisions for our team
Have more of a hold on what pieces of work are on the roadmap 5
Set goals
– Make goals measurable & achievable
– See rework.withgoogle.com/subjects/goal-setting/
– Aim for about 3 months to achieve goals
Represent technology
in sprint planning
Commit time in the calendar (fortnightly) for prospection
Enter trio meetings with prepared thoughts, written down
Grow understanding of
business
Organise 1:1s with Tom to better understand 2019 goals
Learn more from Sarah about our highest value partnerships
Represent my team to
the wider company
Present (at least) 3 team updates in Q2
Share team wins internally (e.g. new affiliate integrations)
Give a presentation to product team about affiliate revenue
Make a plan for tech initiatives we could tackle in Q2

59. 1 hour, 1 page, 5 steps = goals!
@aaronjrandall

61. @aaronjrandall

62. Now what?
@aaronjrandall

63. Get feedback
Personal doesn’t have to mean private
@aaronjrandall

64. Rubberduck
quack
Get feedback
@aaronjrandall

65. Share with your manager
your
manager
Get feedback
@aaronjrandall

66. Accountability
Get feedback
@aaronjrandall

67. Repeat the process
@aaronjrandall

68. Repeat the process
@aaronjrandall

69. Your North Star may stay the same for a while,
but you should see your skills improve
Repeat the process
Communication: 5/10
Communication: 6/10
Communication: 8/10
@aaronjrandall

70. Achieve your goals
Form a habit, deliberate practice
@aaronjrandall

71. Celebrate success!
Eat a donut (à la Lara Hogan)
@aaronjrandall

72. aaronrandall.com/blog
if you want to take
it for a spin!
@aaronjrandall

73. what are my goals?
how am I getting there?
What are you focussing on right
now to grow professionally?
@aaronjrandall

74. “you own your professional
development – not your
company, not your manager –
you”
Maria Gutierrez, Head of Engineering at Intercom
yeah, me
@aaronjrandall

75. find the right
approach for you
A Personal Growth Framework is
just one way of switching the
lights on
@aaronjrandall

76. Make the time, be deliberate,
and grow
@aaronjrandall
this is fun!

77. thanks!
References
● https://www.palomamedina.com/biceps/
● https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pa6G23ygp0
● https://blog.songkick.com/building-a-growth-framework-2464435e9e46
● https://www.songkick.com/downloads/growth-framework/sk-growth-framework.pdf
● https://rework.withgoogle.com/guides/set-goals-with-okrs/steps/set-objectives-and-develop-key-results/
@aaronjrandall
ask questions
or say hi here!
aaronrandall.com/blog
find the Personal
Growth Framework here

78. Q&A
@aaronjrandall

79. Companies that invest
in professional development...
Attract talent
87%rate professional
growth as important
Retain
employees
34%more likely to retain
team members
Save money
20-50%replacing highest-skilled
people = 20-50% of
salary
Build more
engaged teams
15%more engaged
Quality &
output
40%
Profitability
21%
https://goo.gl/TXcVFa

80. Get buy-in
Start the conversation – share the facts – find the right approach

81. Watch the video with slide
synchronization on InfoQ.com!
https://www.infoq.com/presentations/
personal-growth-framework/