Few industries change as fast as technology, and no one set of professionals is responsible for keeping up with changes in the way they work, such as engineers, developers, and other technology professionals. Whether your role is in web or software development, IT or DevOps, data, cybersecurity, machine learning, or cloud computing, mastering new technologies is important for your career development, job security, and business growth. . the company.
Although you will naturally learn new skills on the job due to your job or promotion at a particular company, an active approach to upskilling allows you to manage your career and progress more deliberately, regardless of external factors and changes in your role. . .
The key to a proactive approach to acquiring new skills is a technology skills development plan, which gives you a framework to track and measure your progress. And for technology leaders, supporting your team's design skills development plans will ensure they stay ahead of new developments in their industry.
How to know what skills to develop
A meaningful plan depends as much on knowing what skills to work on as it does on acquiring those new skills. Finding the “right” thing to focus on can be very relative and there are multiple right answers, so the two best places to start are 1) identifying your own skills gap and 2) assessing what the market is looking for.
Take a self-assessment to determine where you stand
An easy way to assess yourself is to divide your practical knowledge into three categories: tools, skills, and work.
Tools: These are the resources at your disposal to do your job. The tools include programming languages, SaaS platforms, systems and certifications that you are proficient in, such as VMware, C++, Wordpress, R, Tableau, etc.
Skills: This is how you apply and use your tools. Within a single tool, you can gain a number of skills in analysis, architecture, data manipulation, problem solving, architecture, QA, or whatever. Consider your tool (be it Google Analytics, Angular, Linux, AWS, Cubernets, or Cloudflare) and ask yourself, "Do I really know how to do this?"
Tasks: Tasks cover larger responsibilities of your job. Why does your company depend on you? What are some projects in which you have played an integral role? Are you expected to do anything outside of your usual job description? An example of a job (compared to a skill) is performing a cloud migration, performing a security assessment, or creating a CI/CD pipeline.
Each of these sections build on each other and will give you a starting point to begin mapping out areas for skill integration and improvement.
Identify which skills are in demand, both in the market and in your company
Gaining new technical skills may be worth simply acquiring new skills, but at work, your manager will want to see how developing your skills helps move business needs forward. A good way to know what to focus on is to talk to your manager and ask for an open opinion.
To cast a wide net and understand how you can "future-proof" your skills, find a job listing for the position you want to move up to in the next five years, or a job at an innovative company where you have the ambition to do the type of work you do. See the tools, skills and work involved. Do they need a minimum of technical skills? What software programs and platforms do they use? What job would you expect to take responsibility for? You may even want to see announcements within your own company as you create a comprehensive professional development plan for yourself.
Consult with your colleagues
The best sources of information often sit next to you. Ask the best people on your team what skills they can share with you and what resources they have used to develop those skills. Offer your availability to help them in their daily work so you can gain experience with tools you might not otherwise use.
Focus on learning activities that move the needle
Once you have a good idea of the skill you want to develop, it's time to get to work. Above all, your skill development goal should be S.M.A.R.T.
Specific: "Improve Javascript" is not a specific goal; describe exactly which elements of the language you want to improve on.
Measurable – Your goal should have some type of soft or hard metric that lets you clearly know if you are improving. For example, a developer might spend on personal efficiency when completing requests, or a data professional might spend on increasing the adoption and use of the data they provide to the marketing organization.
Actionable: Push yourself to achieve your measurable goals, but make sure your plan doesn't override the authority or ownership of others on your team. You want people to support you in your skill development plan, and that requires maintaining their trust.
Realistic: Learning a completely new framework or language in a few months may not be realistic. Start small and concrete, then move up from there.
Timely: Do you have time to adapt for your skill development without running out? If you are unable to perform your daily tasks while learning new skills, you probably need to rebalance.
Once your goal meets those criteria, these three ideas will help you reach them:
Set a daily/weekly/monthly cadence
To keep your plan on time, divide your skill development plan into days, weeks, and months. If you work better with a time structure, set a goal to work a set number of minutes a day toward your goal. Others may want to compare by progress. If you're working on a Pluralsight course or path, for example, set a goal of where you want to get to each week (which you could measure using Skill IQ).
Set aside time in your calendar to learn
Since the skills you're learning will help you on the job, don't hesitate to set aside time on your calendar as part of your development plan. Blocking time is crucial. If you don't, something more important will always come up, or a meeting could be scheduled beyond the time you had in mind.
It's a good idea to include your manager in your plan, especially when it comes to putting in hours of work on skill development. Good leaders must understand and respect your desire and commitment to learn and help provide opportunities for you to do so. Be sure to follow their plan and let them know about your progress so you can maintain their trust and show them that you won't waste their time.
Teach others what you have learned
The best way to help your skills stick is by teaching someone else. As Albert Einstein said: "If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough."
Walk a co-worker through a new program or process you've learned, or offer to take a few minutes at a team meeting to share a new concept. If they have questions they don't know the answers to, build researching the answers to the questions into your plan.
If you work remotely and don't have people around you to teach hands-on, you can always go online to write a blog post, film a tutorial, or post on a developer forum.
Don't wait to develop your skills
Arguably the most important advice I can provide: Get started today! The fact that you're reading an article like this means you're itching to grow, so take advantage of that by spending just 15 minutes a day, and I'll give your skill-building journey the boost it needs.
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