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Career Tip: Change or Stagnate! -- Personal SWOT Analysis for Career Growth

  • Article

Are you in career stagnation?
I feel one of the hardest challenges for IT professionals is to reach beyond their comfort zone. Ask yourself, are you feeling too comfortable in your job? This can be a key indicator of stagnation, complacency, and career stall!

It's good to take ownership and control over your future. I believe there's a lot to be gained by incremental improvements on a continual basis. I often advise IT pros to assess their situation at least monthly and look at opportunities to move forward. Ask yourself, "How can I add and gain value and what do I need to do to grow?" This is the hard part since growth means discomfort. And discomfort encourages avoidance. Who hasn't avoided making difficult or challenging career moves? However, to me, this is a signal for an opportunity that can be missed.
In fact, if I'm feeling too comfortable, I know I'm not growing. There has to be a tool or formal process for doing a career check. I recommend doing a self SWOT analysis. A SWOT analysis is something companies should be doing regularly to ensure differentiation, and competitiveness. However, the same principles apply to career growth for an IT professional. It is something I talked about at the last career day conference where I was the keynote.

So what is a self-SWOT analysis?
You assess your own personal Strengths, Weakness-this is the SW part of (SW)OT. I recommend you do this assessment on three: People, Process, and Technology. How are your people skills: communication, speaking, collaboration, team-building, leadership, writing…to name a few? How are your business process abilities-do you understand the processes used in your industry and in your organization? What is the extent of your business knowledge: business planning, strategic planning, finance, business agility factors, governance, regulatory compliance, etc.? How about your grasp of relevant technologies and future ones? If you determine any shortfalls or gaps, then you need to strengthen them by taking on courses, projects, opportunities where these kinds of skills will be sharpened.

Then you also analyze external Opportunities and Threats-this is the OT portion of SW(OT). When I say external, I mean coming from the environment around you. External opportunities are events, trends, changes occurring that allow you to grow your career. For example, the trend towards online collaboration, SOA, and blogging is an opportunity. The new Microsoft technologies in Windows Server, Vista, Virtualization, Office 2007, Windows Live, are opportunities. The shift towards having a deeper understanding of business processes, overall business and industry knowledge is an opportunity. Large upcoming retirements in senior IT ranks are opportunities. Often opportunities can appear as threats to you since they involve change. However embracing change provides you with a career leadership opportunity.

Threats are disruptive forces that can stall your career. Threats can be technological, economic, political, environmental, … there are no limits. Outsourcing in the technical specialist areas can be a threat that requires you to rethink where you should be focusing your career. Economic downturns in certain industry sectors is another threat. You should be looking to move into other verticals. 

The key is to match your personal strengths against new external opportunities. If there are new opportunities that you can't take advantage of since you don't have the required skills, then the skills you lack are weaknesses. I recommend working on overcoming these weaknesses so they become strengths.  You also should work on reducing or countering external threats. The prior shift to outsourcing of more commoditized jobs was a threat. To reduce this, you would acquire skills in areas that are difficult to outsource such as those that are mission critical to the organization. Typically, this would require taking a more business focus outlook. I should note that the trend towards outsourcing is reversing (in some areas) and moving these functions inside the organization, especially if they are critical to business agility.

A SWOT Example
Let me work through an example of a self-SWOT analysis. Mary as an IT pro is great at acquiring new skills since she has to stay current with constantly evolving IT trends. This is a strength. The movement towards a more business focus in IT roles is an external opportunity. Mary takes courses in business and works towards her CIPS I.S.P. to take advantage of this new opportunity. Mary is reluctant to interface with business workers and has difficulty in making presentations. This is a weakness so she starts taking courses in communications, and joins a speaking club where she can improve her skills. In her job when there's a request to make a presentation before business managers, she volunteers. Mary is applying her newly conquered weakness to these opportunities so she can gain recognition outside of her specialist domain. She also gets recognition before management that she want to move into more senior roles. 40% of IT specialist jobs are being eliminated. This is an eternal threat so Mary looks to broadening her skill set outside of the specialist area and starts studying business process management. Mary conducts this self-assessment every month and makes the necessary changes to move her closer to her goals.

I want to hear from you … comment here or send me an e-mail as sibaraki@cips.ca

Thank you,
Stephen Ibaraki

Comments

  • Anonymous
    June 14, 2006
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  • Anonymous
    June 14, 2006
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    June 14, 2006
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  • Anonymous
    June 16, 2006
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  • Anonymous
    June 17, 2006
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    June 17, 2006
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  • Anonymous
    June 17, 2006
    Jason,

    I'm glad the blog is of use to your audience...

    Cheers,
    Stephen Ibaraki

  • Anonymous
    June 17, 2006
    There's a good collection there at "In the Trenches." I'll check in periodically at the site. The comment about outsourcing is a good one since an IT Pro can become commoditized and the only way to combat it effectively is by continual incremental improvements. It’s the same with companies except the improvements are in innovation and business agility. The same principles that apply in business also apply to a career. The idea is that you think of your career like a business.

    Cheers,
    Stephen Ibaraki, FCIPS, ISP
    Vice-President, Canadian Information Processing Society (CIPS)
    Certified (ISP), CIPS Fellow (FCIPS)

  • Anonymous
    June 17, 2006
    Jing,

    It is great that you have taken the time to contribute here and give us your personal insight. I for one appreciate it and I am sure that others do also. The CIM blog and its readers can only benefit by more thoughtful contributions by as wide a collection of people as possible. We may not always totally agree with each other but that is what meaningful debate is about.

    I look forward to seeing your views on other topics as they arise here.

    Cheers
    Graham Jones

  • Anonymous
    June 17, 2006
    Graham,

    Taking every opportunity to share, collaborate or teach are all elements of mentorship and in turn the IT Pro receives incremental skill growth from the interaction. Plus the relationships formed work for a lifetime. These relationships or networks form a powerful resource ecosystem. This accentuates the Community of IT!

    Graham, you are mentoring in so many ways:
    - at Microsoft’s EnergizeIT in Vancouver on June 24th as one of the leads;
    - here in this forum by contributing your insightful comments and blogs based upon your long history of actually “doing it”;
    - by stepping up to the plate as President of VANTUG;
    - and in your “day job” of teaching and guiding.

    The common element is volunteerism and I encourage all IT Pros to take a little time out of their schedules to get involved. A little here, a little there adds up and makes a commanding statement about the inherent value locked in IT Pros.

    Cheers,
    Stephen Ibaraki

  • Anonymous
    June 17, 2006
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  • Anonymous
    June 18, 2006
    Hi all, Great comments!

    Jing, I especially like that you tied this in to passion. Whenever I interview someone as a potential developer I always probe to see if they do development as a hobby and for how many years. Without question there is a greater sense of ownership, which almost always equates to quality and productivity, from those who “love” their jobs.

    To throw my own two cents in, I would encourage you to seek external input in to your strengths and weaknesses. You may be quite surprised. As a personal example, I have been aching to pursue an MBA for a while now.  I feel that my lack of a post-grad degree is a personal deficit. However, recently I was told that on paper I come across looking “too academic”. Imagine my shock! Retrospectively I imagine I have over-compensated for my own perceived weakness, but in the eyes of others this is not a weakness at all. What I perceived as a weakness is perceived by others as a strength, possibly even an over qualification. …and hence, all the more value of a coach.

    Thanks for all the good ideas!
    Adam

  • Anonymous
    June 18, 2006
    Adam,

    You make some fine points. There is value in seeking external assessments and from a variety of perspectives.

    In terms of an MBA, an "executive" MBA provides a real-world aspect and not a purely academic credential; extended relationships with other practicing managers and executives plus the added business insights. Moreover, it can be done online from accredited schools here in Canada such as AU. I did an interview with the Director of the AU program, Dr. Lindsay Redpath that provides added information:
    http://www.stephenibaraki.com/cips/v55/lredpath.html

    I talked of this before, I had a conversation with a serial entrepreneur on the path of his next successful startup which I believe will be a Billion+ operation. Interestingly, the greatest value he received from his Harvard MBA was the relationships he formed which were of key importance throughout his long career. This feeling is seconded by another senior executive who created the largest sales channel for Intel and is now the founder of the largest new media company. He did his "executive" MBA for the relationships.

    Cheers,
    Stephen Ibaraki

  • Anonymous
    June 18, 2006
    Graham,

    A fine message for Jing. I'm ready for a good debate too :-)

    Cheers,
    Stephen Ibaraki

  • Anonymous
    June 18, 2006
    Hi, Graham, Adam, Stephen:

    Thank you all for your supportive comments. I have been thinking about what you said on this topic this weekend when taking my walk after each meal. I appreciate your kind suggestions and I am following up on them.

    Thanks again!

    Jing

  • Anonymous
    July 18, 2006
     I thought, “What a great blog!”, after reading Graham’s piece on management. It brought to mind Colin’s...

  • Anonymous
    July 20, 2006
     I thought, "What a great blog!", after reading Graham’s piece on management. It brought to mind Colin’s...

  • Anonymous
    October 05, 2007
    PingBack from http://www.accountancyservicesonline.info/quotignite-your-careerquot-webcast-series/

  • Anonymous
    October 09, 2007
    Earlier this year, MSDN Canada and the Canadian Information Processing Society (CIPS) decided to try