Is Career Path Planning Outdated?

As someone who has spent their entire career in Technology, I thought this article from Nicole Gravagna has a tremendous point.

When I used to have that "annual career path planning meeting" with folks that worked for me, I often joked at how poorly I did it for myself. My own career is a zig zag of roles in traditional IT, consulting, product management, strategic planning and more. Often a leader, sometimes an individual. My only justification was that I often followed paths that interested or inspired me and I never felt motivated to have a goal like "become the CEO".

Per Nicole "We live in a changing world. You can't predict what jobs will be available in ten years. How can you plan a career path to get a job that is completely invisible to you?"

I totally agree with this. How many roles have I had that did not exist when I started my career? I would've missed the wonderful experience I had in R&D if I had not leapt off my previous path when a new one suddenly opened, I wouldn't have ever become a good consultant if I hadn't learned how to talk to clients when I started filling in on sales calls, and so on. A huge number of skills I now consider critical came when I hopped paths to take on new challenges.

I fully intend to follow her advice for myself and I actually kind of look forward to the opportunity help one of my future team members work through this for themselves.