The document discusses finding one's overall career goals and legacy. It presents several potential career goals or purposes someone may have, including making a meaningful contribution to their field, building a business, being intrigued by technology, enjoying being part of a team, earning an income, helping other people, or having a portfolio of accomplishments. It acknowledges that people may feel lost trying to find their purpose, lack courage to pursue their real purpose, or feel like they are running out of time. The overarching message is to reflect on one's career and think about how they want to be remembered or what legacy they want to leave behind.

1. What Is Your Overall Career Goal?
Karen N. Johnson

2. Most work days are hectic. We juggle the pace of project life, the rush of being in the technology field
and of course, we balance these work demands against personal and family needs, and then at some
point we may come to realize years can go by while we navigate just a day at a time.
What are your overall career goals? This year’s theme of the EuroStar conference is the French phrase:
“je ne sais pas” or in English, “I don’t know.” Do you know your career goals? Have you paused to
think about it? When you look back, what was it you wanted to achieve?
Perhaps it is time to figure out your purpose.

4. Your work legacy might be to
make a meaningful contribution to the field.
#ESCONFS

5. My experience.
Make a meaningful contribution
to the field.
Over the course of my career, I felt some activities I
took on contributed to the field of software testing.
For example:
• Serving as Director on the AST board.
• Publishing articles and a chapter in a book.
• Contributing to the set of software testing
heuristics.
• Raising the awareness of quality and testing
practices everywhere I have worked.
Most years, I have looked for one or more activities
that I would provide at no cost that I felt served in this
direction.

6. Is this your legacy?
Make a meaningful
contribution to the field.
• Do you think this is your legacy?
• Is this part of your legacy?
• What would you like to have contributed?
• Have you started contributing?
• Are you waiting for something?
• Could it be an actual product such as a tool or
a concept or approach to testing?

7. Your work legacy might be to
build a business.
#ESCONFS

8. My experience.
Build a business.
I built my own path in independent consulting
for several years. What the opportunity gave
me was more flexibility to achieve personal
goals as well as to pick and choose my
work opportunities more carefully. Although I
did not expand past being a solo consultant, I
did own a legally incorporated business and
viewed my work as running a business.

9. Is this your legacy?
Build a business.
• Do you think this is your legacy?
• Does your business provide other people with
work?
• Do you have the business background or
desire to learn to build a business?
• Do you want partners?
• Do you want the business to endure after you
retire?

10. You might find your work's purpose is being
intrigued by technology.
#ESCONFS

11. My experience.
Intrigued by technology.
Over the years in software testing, I often would
read and research deeply into the technologies I
was working with – more deeply than some
may have realized. For a long stretch I was often
motivated by working on the hottest technology
taking place. My technology motivation might
be thought of as driven by technology.

12. Is this your purpose?
Intrigued by technology.
• Do you think this what drives you?
• Does solving problems with a technical
solutions provide you with satisfaction?
• Do you lose yourself in the work?
• Do you want to contribute to Open
Source work?

13. Your work might be fulfilling because you
enjoy being part of a team.
#ESCONFS

14. My experience.
Enjoy being part of a team.
I have more than one sweet memory of when
I worked on a team where the people, I
worked with helped pull me through not just
work but struggles with life.

15. Is this your purpose?
Being part of a team.
• Is your satisfaction less about a legacy and
more about your enjoyment through your
career?
• Does being part of a team provide you a
sense of place and purpose?
• Are your teammates part of your personal
life?
• Do you think of your team like a family?

16. Your work might be fulfilling because you
earn an income that fuels other parts of your life.
#ESCONFS

17. My experience.
Earn an income.
For some who feel passionately about their work, they
may even be frustrated by those in our field who have
other priorities more compelling to them than their
work. But when you think about a legacy – what you
leave behind – your impact on people may have the
most lasting value of anything tangible that is built or
contributed – most especially in a rapidly changing
field. At the start of this talk I referenced work legacy
to help draw the distinction that your personal legacy
may be the more compelling driver in your life.

18. Is this your purpose?
Earn an income.
• Do you feel your personal life is where you will
leave a larger legacy?
• Do you feel your income helps you achieve
those personal goals?
• Do you enjoy your work, but your personal life
is the more compelling aspect of your whole
life?

19. Your work legacy might be to
help other people.
#ESCONFS

20. My experience.
Help other people.
After a long stretch of a solid career where my
focus has been on my achievements, I'm now
more focused on helping other people
achieve their goals. I left solo consulting and
I am working in a management role primarily
to help other people.

21. Is this your purpose?
Help other people.
• Does your greater satisfaction come
from helping other people achieve their
goals?
• Does serving other people as they want to be
served, motivate you?
• Do you help other people for private/personal
or public satisfaction or approval?

22. Or you might feel your legacy is not one accomplishment
but a collection or a "portfolio of accomplishments."
#ESCONFS

23. My experience.
A portfolio for a legacy.
As I look back over my career, it appears like a
scrapbook to me. I don't see one thing, I see
multiple. I don't see one crowning
achievement, I see smaller victories.
Let me tell you about a few of those …

24. Is this your purpose?
A portfolio
• Do projects stand out in your memory?
• Do you have work you feel proud of?
• If you had to summarize your work, does a
collection versus one accomplishment seem
more fitting?

25. So what gets in our way?

26. What if you feel lost trying
to find your purpose?

27. What if you lack the
courage to pursue what
you feel is your real
purpose?

28. What if you feel
that you are running out
of time?

29. If your career ended today, what would you believe your work
legacy would be?
#ESCONFS

30. Thank you for listening.
Thank you to the EuroStar
conference staff.
contact:
karen@karennjohnson.com
or
karen.johnson@jamf.com
or
@karennjohnson
#ESCONFS