Career Development Frameworks and Tools - Business Tools (Part 1)

It has been a while since my last newsletter and a lot has happened during this time. I had the honor to present my research about the “Cybersecurity Talent Crisis: Today and Tomorrow” (see the published research here ) at the Qubit Conference? and the privilege to start Joberty’s webinars series sharing about Secure SDLC. Much to learn and much to do.

In this article we are going to cover a few business tools that can help with your career development, self-assessment, and discovery journey.

The GROW Model

Mostly used for mentoring and coaching people but that does not mean you cannot use it for your own career development, to help you make better decisions, learn new skills and many more.

Accessing and using the available frameworks, models, techniques, and practices will help you plan your journey, and every journey starts with a goal in mind.

Your Goal could be landing in a pentesting role or becoming a people manager or the next CEO (dream big). Your career goal must be something that inspires you to push forward, the burning desire and the thing you always think and talk about.

If you still do not have the answer to the following questions: What you love? What you are good at? What the world needs? What can you get paid for? My recommendation is to spend some time researching IKIGAI. Here is an article to get you started: https://positivepsychology.com/ikigai/

The R stands for understanding or examining the Reality. This is where you make your first steps towards making that dream come true. Take it slow, overachievers might tend to take big steps and become lost. Try to remember that any journey starts with that first step, and there might be plenty of things you already know and done – this is where the next tool comes into play.

Your Options: what you have done, what you are doing and what else you need to do. Using simple analysis to understand where exactly you are in the journey, what you need to keep doing and what you should stop doing. Like a good strategist that you are already you can take a step back and reflect on your progress, celebrate the small wins, make corrections, and push forward.

So far you have established your goal, examined the reality and your options but how big is that burning desire to be successful? How much are you Willing to invest and sacrifice to get there? The WILL component of the model is just to help us measure how far we will go and if we are ready for whatever we are preparing for. Ask some simple questions: Is it easy to keep yourself motivated? Is it hard to recover from setbacks? Do you have the grit to push forward no matter the obstacles?

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PLAN-DO-CHECK-ACT Cycle

The PDCA cycle is considered a project planning tool and as you make your first steps into cybersecurity or work toward your next promotion it is important to understand the basic about how to build your strategy and then execute the plan. This is one of those tools that you can use at the beginning of your career as well as throughout your journey from one role to another. Some common uses for the PDCA cycle: a new project (getting into cyber), implementing changes (working towards a promotion) and continuous improvement (evolve as a professional | grow your career).

The PLAN phase is simply recognizing an opportunity or planning for a change (take a training, read a book)

DO: small scale implementation of your plan. Testing what is working or not and adjusting in your study plan (taking notes; is the content clear enough for you? The trainer is using complex and hard to understand terminology? – take another training of the same topic with a different trainer). Everyone has its pace and way of understanding the material (video, audio or a combination of both).

CHECK: understand and measure your progress. Are you meeting the deadlines? Are you coordinated with the proposed timeline? This is the phase where you verify and validate what you have learned (seek to analyze how much do you understand; use flashcards, etc.)

ACT: apply what you have learned and/or adjust your plan. Start over. (take a test, build a lab, try to train someone else to see how well you understand the topic; at this point you will start the whole cycle from the beginning and either learning new skills or spending more time on the topic)

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With a model and planning knowledge in our pockets we are moving forward to learning and how to effectively do it.

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The 70-20-10 Model

The learning and development formula proposes that on average 70% of knowledge comes from experiential learning (assignments, hands-on experience), 20% from peer-to-peer interactions and only 10% comes from training and/or other study materials. For those that are just looking to just start a career sharing this model might not make any sense especially that 70% of the knowledge comes from learning “on the job” type of experience. The formula does not necessarily need to be fixed and might be adjusted as needed, but more important for you to understand is the value between spending time doing online trainings versus mentoring, assignments, spending time with people from the industry of interest, joining platforms that also offer hands-on labs, etc.

Start looking for a mentor and a simple rule is always best is you have at least two. Here are some Free mentoring platforms to help you get started:

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CyberMentorDojo: https://cybermentordojo.com/

CyberFirst: https://hmgcc.gov.uk/our-teams/cyberfirst/

PushFar: https://www.pushfar.com /

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It is important to understand that whatever you learn you also need to apply and soon as possible and as often as possible. Instead of learn-learn-learn-do try learning by doing, connect the theory with practice by acquiring knowledge, performing activities and reflect (on the newly learn skill or concept).

Learn more about the experiential learning and Kolb’s Cycle here

Understanding where you are going, how to plan for that goal and utilizing the existing resources will take you one step closer to your dream job.

Stay safe, stay positive, stay strong!