Setting the Scene
Imagine that you sit down with your line manager during your regular development meeting.
You both work on creating your Career Development Plan, mapping out the next 5 years in a surprising level of detail.
You may want to be in a senior leadership position by then, or to become a technical specialist, or even to move to a different unit within the business.
You map out all the training and experience you would need to get there and plan it across the 5 years.
You are both happy.
You have your plan.
And then, life happens.
You either get caught up in the day-to-day work, or you start a family and priorities change, or any other number of possibilities that end up putting your plan on the back burner.
At the same time, other opportunities may have come up which you took, and you end up somewhere completely different.
None of this means that your plan failed; it’s just the complexity of life.
Career Development Plans Aren’t the Problem
Let me be clear: Career Development Plans aren’t the problem, nor are the organisations that use them.
I’ve created many for myself and my previous teams and got a lot of satisfaction out of creating them.
They create a sense of possibility and excitement for what the future may hold for you.
These plans really act as a North Star. You can assess any career decisions against them to see if you are heading in the right direction.
They also create useful conversations between you, your manager and maybe even your colleagues and family.
Once you’ve created the intention to pursue a path, it allows you to talk it through with those closest to you, which helps them to be able to support you
Problem 1 - Linear Thinking
The traditional approach to these plans goes something like this:
Goal > Plan > Execute > Achieve > Next Goal
In the case of career progression, the goal is typically a promotion to the next level of seniority.
This assumes a nice linear progression throughout your career.
The reality is more like this:
Goal > Plan > Life > Opportunity > Roadblock > Change > Repeat
Where the term ‘plan’ is quite loose and may not even be the right word.
The problem is, you cannot plan a 5-10 year trajectory.
There are too many factors outside of your control, such as:
Organisational structure changes
Changes in the economy
Who gets the promotion that you want
Business strategy changes
Opportunities that come up or disappear
You can’t even control what future you want or your values, and these can impact your career direction.
Problem 2 - Destination Thinking
A Career Development Plan can accidentally turn “What do I want from my career?” into “What job title do I want next?”
This can be easy to do, as it’s only natural to look at the next step up and assume that is what you want.
If you’re a Manager and you think you want to become a Senior Manager next because there's more money and more influence.
But what you really might want is more autonomy and more meaningful work.
A Senior Manager position may provide some of the autonomy, but your days may be filled with more meetings and admin that provide you with less meaning.
The development plan becomes less focused on underlying strengths and values and more on just the next rung of the ladder.
So What Should You Do?
This isn’t about replacing Career Development Plans, but changing your relationship with them.
Here are 3 reframes:
Destination → Direction
Don’t treat development plans like a map to a destination, but treat them like a compass to keep you heading in the right direction.
Prediction → Experimentation
You can’t accurately predict how or where you will be in 5 years. Instead, use your plan to test things out without having to fully commit. This could include short-term job rotations, shadowing someone or taking on side projects.
Fixed Plan → Iterative Plan
Don’t just create a plan once and glance at it once a year. Constantly review it and make changes as you change.
Career Design: Planning Without Predicting
Career Design doesn't ask you to predict exactly where your career will be in five or ten years.
Instead, it helps you understand where you are now, what matters to you, what success actually means to you, and to explore different possibilities and test them in the real world.
The goal isn't to produce a perfect one-and-done career plan.
It's to develop the ability to make better career decisions as your circumstances change, but always ensuring coherence with your values and definition of success.
That’s why I have created The DESIGN Method.
It starts with doing the work to understand yourself: your values, strengths and your individual definition of being successful.
Then it moves on to compare that against your current career: what’s working, what needs changing, etc.
Then come the experiments: low-risk trials to see if the identified changes work or not.
Finally, planning on how to implement the changes.
Conclusion
Career development plans work best when we stop treating them like a map and start treating them as a North Star.
You don't need to know exactly where your career will be in five years.
You just need enough direction to make a good decision about what to do next and be willing to reassess that decision when you learn something new.
Because your career isn't a project with a fixed end date.
It's something you continually design.
Don't just plan your career. Learn how to design it.
