The work you dedicate yourself to daily transcends mere employment; it’s an integral component of your meticulously crafted career trajectory. However, seamlessly linking your present job to your overarching career aspirations isn’t always straightforward. Beyond charting your course and identifying your passions, the challenge lies in discerning the ‘what,’ ‘when,’ and ‘how’ of effective execution, day in and day out.
Countless methodologies promise to streamline your efforts towards the right objectives. The sheer volume of time management strategies, project analysis frameworks, and goal-setting systems—from OKRs to SMART goals—can be overwhelming. This paradox of choice often complicates matters further, as you must first navigate this vast landscape to select the most suitable system for your needs and then implement it effectively.
While I don’t profess to possess a universal solution, I offer a compilation of tools that I’ve successfully employed with my teams. These resources are designed to foster a deeper comprehension of individual contributions and responsibilities, ultimately enhancing professional engagement and effectiveness. These tools can be considered your Create-a-career Tool kit, designed to help you build a fulfilling and impactful professional life.
The Circle — Career Growth: Skills and Influence
Conceptualizing your career as a series of interconnected impacts and spheres of influence enables the creation of thoughtful development objectives that evolve in tandem with your accumulating experience.
For professionals in the early stages of their careers, the primary emphasis should be on cultivating a robust foundational skill set, typically in conjunction with initial project assignments. The aim is to expand your repertoire of design and problem-solving techniques while refining existing expertise. In larger organizations, guidance is often provided by senior leaders or mentors, alongside collaborative teams that aid in honing your craft. In smaller setups, consider engaging with communities like Creative Mornings or local chapters of professional organizations such as AIGA, UXPA, or SIGCHI to connect with peers and broaden your professional network.
As you accrue experience, continuous investment in core competencies remains crucial, shifting towards a blend of in-depth subject matter expertise and a broader, strategic perspective. While project work remains central, your involvement often transitions to a more integrative, system-wide level. You’ll be tasked with managing individual features while simultaneously orchestrating their alignment within a larger ecosystem to construct cohesive products and tool suites.
From a skill enhancement standpoint, I encourage my team to identify avenues for collective improvement—becoming better, faster, or smarter as a unit. We categorize these initiatives as “Give Back” projects, encompassing diverse forms. Team members might develop internal training programs, assess and recommend new prototyping tools, or propose process enhancements for design and delivery workflows. Others champion internal consistency, managing style guides or coordinating design reviews. We also have team members collaborating with Research and Product teams on early-stage exploratory investigations, aimed at clearly defining customer challenges.
Upon reaching senior leadership positions, your focus broadens significantly, emphasizing external influence and communication. This may entail shaping high-level company design strategy, participating in industry conferences or speaking engagements, and contributing to publications. For instance, our Senior Manager leads our design “brand” touchpoints, overseeing our presence across platforms like Medium, Dribbble, Vimeo, our Groupon Design Union site, and our revitalized Twitter presence.
Key lesson: Begin with self-assessment of your skills and abilities. Subsequently, progressively expand your impact and influence over time. This circular model serves as a dynamic create-a-career tool, adaptable to every stage of professional growth.
The Rectangle — Individual Goals: Allocating Your Effort
The rectangle framework provides a structure for distributing time and attention. While specific allocations vary based on role and seniority, the overarching principle applies universally across our team. Goals are structured around three core themes:
- Project work (approximately 60% of effort): Aligned with Product OKRs.
- Give-back work (10–30% of effort): Aligned with Design Team OKRs.
- Personal development efforts (10–30% of effort): Guided by ongoing career aspiration discussions.
This framework is valuable for several key reasons:
- It compels a shift in perspective beyond immediate project demands, encouraging strategic time allocation.
- It fosters alignment between you and your manager regarding long-term career progression and success planning.
- It legitimizes and reinforces the commitment of time and resources to non-project-specific endeavors, particularly skill-building activities often sidelined by pressing deadlines.
Key lesson: Goal setting and managerial alignment facilitate the allocation of time for team and personal development. Adopt a long-term career perspective, acknowledging fluctuating periods of flexibility. Remain vigilant against the “all project work, all the time” pitfall. This rectangular model acts as a practical create-a-career tool for managing your workload and fostering balanced professional development.
The Square — Prioritization: The Eisenhower Matrix
We are perpetually subjected to a barrage of demands vying for immediate attention. In these high-pressure moments, discerning the true impact of these demands can be challenging. The Eisenhower Matrix serves as a valuable tool for differentiating between tasks based on their importance—a constant value from request to completion—and urgency—the intensity of need that escalates to a peak and then diminishes.
The matrix categorization is as follows:
- Quadrant 1 (Urgent & Important): Tasks are executed immediately and personally.
- Quadrant 2 (Not Urgent & Important): Tasks are assigned a due date and completed personally.
- Quadrant 3 (Urgent & Not Important): Tasks are delegated if feasible or addressed as time allows.
- Quadrant 4 (Not Urgent & Not Important): Tasks are discarded.
Often, external stakeholders present tasks they deem as Quadrant 1 or 2 for you, accompanied by inherent social pressure. However, their urgency does not automatically translate into your priority. The most effective strategy is transparent communication regarding your prioritization framework and realistic response timelines. Early-career professionals, primarily focused on inner circle development, should leverage leadership to guide prioritization and deflect tasks outside their immediate sphere of impact.
Key lesson: Clearly distinguish between urgent and important tasks. Focus on endeavors that genuinely matter. Communicate honestly with stakeholders if their requests cannot be immediately accommodated. Utilize leadership support for effective prioritization and deflection. The Eisenhower Matrix provides a powerful create-a-career tool for strategic task management and focused productivity.
The Triangle — Gaining Alignment
Based on work with Frank Siccone
There inevitably arises a project where consensus with key stakeholders seems unattainable. Disagreements over minute details like pixel placement, color palettes, or desired “pop” can lead to frustration and deadlock.
I offer a pathway to navigate this impasse, one that proves surprisingly effective.
When conflicts arise concerning the “how” of project execution—design aesthetics or procedural methodologies—they often stem from divergent tactical perspectives. Tactics encompass daily decisions made by designers and the processes employed: Color selection, icon or image suitability, adherence to standard design patterns versus bespoke solutions. These are all potential points of contention.
Resolving tactical disagreements hinges on establishing shared understanding and alignment. When tactical disputes emerge, the initial step is to verify mutual comprehension of project objectives—the “what.” Objectives define the core solution to a specific problem or need. Discrepancies in understanding objectives—for example, streamlining registration versus prioritizing mobile-first yellow aesthetics—underlie tactical disagreements. Once objectives are mutually agreed upon, tactical discussions become significantly more productive.
If consensus on project objectives remains elusive, escalate the conversation to the mission level—the “why” behind the project. While mission statements can be debated in terms of their efficacy, engaging the team in an honest dialogue about the project’s rationale yields substantial benefits. A shared understanding of purpose facilitates smoother progression to defining objectives and subsequently, tactics.
Finally, should mission alignment prove challenging, the ultimate recourse is to revisit the overarching company vision—the fundamental reason for the organization’s existence.
Key lesson: When project execution conflicts arise (the “how”), ascend the pyramid—to objectives (the “what”) and then mission (the “why”)—to identify common ground. Leverage this shared understanding to guide tactical decisions that resonate with all parties. This triangular framework functions as a create-a-career tool for effective communication and stakeholder alignment, crucial for project success and career advancement.
A career journey unfolds over decades, with work occupying a significant portion of our lives. These shapes and the frameworks they embody offer a concise vocabulary for richer, more meaningful dialogues about jobs and projects, whether with your team or manager. The ultimate aim is to integrate these discussions into the broader context of “What do I want to be when I grow up?”, making these tools invaluable for anyone looking to actively create-a-career tool set for long-term professional fulfillment.
Andrew Sandler is the Director of Product Design for the Groupon Merchant experience. He is currently exploring camping with small children, finding it a novel experience after years of endurance running. The success of his next camping trip may well determine whether he returns to the comparative tranquility of marathons.
Originally posted on our Groupon Design Union blog on Medium
