Posts tagged 3Ps process

I thought it might be sensible to publish a post giving the links to all the four posts I put on my blog together so it would be easy for readers to track and view them properly.  So here you go,

Guide for career progression – 3Ps process is a series of FOUR posts.  Other posts on this could be found below.

Part ONE – Overview

Tells about what the process is all about and what are the important phases in the process.

Part TWO – Prepare yourself

Tells about how to prepare yourself and what are the important things that you should keep in mind.

Part THREE – Practice hard, become a key player

Tells about how to become a key player in the project and carry out important responsibilities and showing results on the job.

Part FOUR – Pass it on & progress

Finally, tells about how to move on and be ready for next step.

Thanks for reading.

Pass it on and progress ahead

In the previous two posts I mentioned how to get into a project and become a real dependable and key project member. If you have not read them, I recommend you to check at the bottom of this post to get the links for them.

Assuming you have actually become the key player within the team and enjoyed your time at the top of your capabilities, for a good while, then you should really look forward to ‘start unlearning’ your knowledge in the project and start to build a back up for yourself so you could try and make yourself ready for next step.

When I essentially say ‘unlearn’, you need to ensure that following things are met,

• Identify the person who could take your role within the project
• Start personally training the person over the project
• Ensure the knowledge you have gained on the project is shared / understood and practiced by the second level person you chose
• Make yourself available to your manager for the work that he need to get done (After all, you are after his job, aren’t you?)
• Start to make yourself redundant in the project

You might question me on the last point I wrote here, and ask me when the second phase tells me to be a key player in the project, why do you suggest to make yourself redundant in the project now?

Well, valid point but a very very important one. The answer is, unless you make yourself redundant to the work and make project work independent of you, how would you step up to the next role? Got the point !

It is essential to build a good team and good resources in the project when you leave it behind. It shows a good legacy and a good track record of yourself as a professional, manager and good leader. Another thing you need to do in this phase is to engage with your manager more often than you used to do in the earlier phase, see if you could try and understand what work he does, how he does and understand the job expectations.

Secret tip: Your manager also needs to move up the value chain, so help him do so and claim his throne. Give him space to move up and you could move up too !

If you get good luck along the way, you might see a good result in your next performance review, and then you can start applying the phase 1 to your role again ! As I said earlier in my first post, the entire cycle lasts for approx 2-3 years to you got to have patience during the process and show a good willingness to put hard work and show resilience.

Hope this series would have helped you the corporate cycle of career progression. All your comments are welcome as usual.

Cheerio and all the best

This is a series of FOUR posts on Guide for career progression – 3Ps process.  Other posts on this could be found below.

Part ONE – Overview
Part TWO – Prepare yourself
Part THREE – Practice hard, become a key player
Part FOUR – Pass it on & progress

Practice hard – become a key player

In the last two posts about my guide to career progression, I wrote about how you can sense opportunities and prepare yourself for getting into grove.

The next step obviously is to get yourself involved in the project work and become a key player in the project. Now, understanding the term key player is very important to successfully complete this phase.

When I mention key player, I essentially mean that a person should be,

• Self reliant on any project related work
• Should be highly dependent & technically very very good on the job
• Should be able to provide Solutions to the problems
• Should have in-depth knowledge about the project & surroundings

Being self-reliant is achievable if you actually work really hard to understand the project, learn the project goals and start aligning your own short term goals according to the same. As I say,

Working hard is very very important, working smart is even more !

Becoming key player not only makes you an important person within the project but also makes you more dependable and reliable in terms of gaining the mileage out of your managers. I always emphasize on showing the results rather than just showing your work hours. Showing the work hours does not always help, unless your work demands so.

I expect a period of about 6-8 months again, for someone to become a key player in the project. Mind you, its not easy task to do so. You have to always show eagerness to learn new things, respond to changes & show your capabilities while on the road.

One thing I mentioned in my last post in this series (here) was to Show and prove  that you alone can carry on the project and make the project dependant on yourself. This is a very very important thing in this phase and important exit criteria. Unless you can show your worth to the project, there is a little chance that your work will be noticed and considered worth its efforts by your management. (Sorry to disclose this tip though !)

Some important tips you can remember on the way to become key player are,

• Show your worth in the project and show results
• Take initiatives, implement technical solutions to common problems
• Work smarter and save efforts by automation of routine tasks
• Keep in mind that results matter, not the hours you burn
• Achieve efficiency in the process and show benefits to management & customers
• Be noticed each time !

If you can achieve this and become a key player in the project, it makes things lot easier for making yourself ready for the next phase in your career. As I said earlier, its not easy and probably not achievable without frequent discussions and re-aligning the short term goals with your manager. It is important to keep your manager aware of your progress, your short term goals and how you are able to help the project by your work !

Will write about the final phase probably in next couple of days as and when I get time to put things together. Till then, cheerio !

This is a series of FOUR posts on Guide for career progression – 3Ps process.  Other posts on this could be found below.

Part ONE – Overview
Part TWO – Prepare yourself
Part THREE – Practice hard, become a key player
Part FOUR – Pass it on & progress

Prepare yourself

In any job you do, it is very important for you to set up your own goals. Unless you are clear on where you want to go in your career and what your objectives are then most probably you would end up being wood floating on a river.

So, set yourself goals. Realistic, achievable and most notably demonstrable goals, where you could show the output to your managers and peers. It always helps to have, as I said, realistic goals that could possibly achieved in a short term (3-6 months) and long term (2+ years). 

One thing that you should keep in mind while setting goals is the fact that unless your goals satisfy two prime criteria. They are,

1. Does it benefit your project / organization?
2. Can that give you a value or a weight in your performance report?

Ok, once you have made your mind clear on the goals then the first and foremost thing you should do is to set the ball rolling by starting to work hard (read smart) in your project and demonstrate that you are absolutely keen and dedicated to the cause of the project (and organization).

Few actions you would like to note are,

• Understand the project quickly
• Be a good team player and a listener
• Help others in the team
• Demonstrate good results in the project and be dependable
• Show you can carry out the project on your own shoulders (secret tip – read it as make the project dependant on you) !

Typically you expect to get ready to move into 2nd gear of your progression over a period of 6-8 months.  Once you have have met all above, you are ready to step into the next step and take more challenges on board.

Will write about the step two, in my part three sometime over next few days, so keep an eye here!

This is a series of FOUR posts on Guide for career progression – 3Ps process.  Other posts on this could be found below.

Part ONE – Overview
Part TWO – Prepare yourself
Part THREE – Practice hard, become a key player
Part FOUR – Pass it on & progress

I have been wanting to write about this since a long time, however it took a real long time for me to think appropriately and make my mind on what I should post here. Well, finally I have tried to consolidate few thoughts in my mind about this and putting them here for you all to read / think and if you feel, act on them.

The progress of one in his career is as dependent on hard work, luck as you identifying the right opportunity, sensing chances and making your moves at the right time. The more you move up in the corporate chain, the more it makes things competitive and tougher to break.

In my relatively moderate experience and what I have seen around me, I have tried to devise the progression from one level to another into three step process, which if you work upon, and provided you identify opportunity, sense chances and make your moves at the right time, could help you progress in your career.

Now, before I move on the steps and uncover you the secret, I may warn you that this may not be obviously applicable in all possible cases and all possible job types. My little brain has worked only in the IT sector where you have typical organizational hierarchical structure to deal with and most importantly, you are interested in growing yourself up in the corporate ladder at any cost !

   First pledge to me that you will never break this secret to anyone !

       Great ! Thanks for your pledge. I can proceed happily now !

Moving on now to the three step process I mentioned earlier. The process is typically covered over a period of 2-3 years (considering the IT scenario now) so you must have a patience, a will to put shifts & hard work, capability to learn new things / skills as well as unlearn if the time demands you to do so and pray for a little bit of luck along the way.

The three steps of the process are Prepare, Practice & Pass. So henceforth I would call it as a 3Ps process.

I hope to publish a series of about 4 posts (including this) on career progression and how you can use the 3Ps process (Prepare, Practice & Pass) for your benefit.

Till then, enjoy your time on my blog and as usual thanks for visiting the it.

This is a series of FOUR posts on Guide for career progression – 3Ps process.  Other posts on this could be found below.

Part ONE – Overview
Part TWO – Prepare yourself
Part THREE – Practice hard, become a key player
Part FOUR – Pass it on & progress