You’ve probably heard it often said that you should be focused on learning, but perhaps haven’t been given specific advice on what to learn. Maybe, like many of us, you’ve fallen into the trap of always being behind what you need to know to complete the next project.
Just in time learning happens when you’re only learning the bare minimum to complete the next feature which can result in suboptimal solutions being found. This type of learning is incredibly efficient for a company in the short term as it leads the individual to focus their learning on topics suitable for the work that needs doing. Having broader knowledge, however, can be a differentiator that accelerates your career, as you can find more valuable or faster solutions to a wide range of problems.
This is where dedicated research and learning time can be powerful. It allows individuals to pause and reflect on what they want to learn and take ownership of how they choose to grow. With that in mind, here are some different categories of learning to think about:
Drivers of research/learning
- Competency driven learning
- Interest driven learning
- Tooling driven learning
- Roadmap driven learning (problems)
Competency driven learning
Competencies are the knowledge and skills expected of you to perform your job. Focusing on these competencies is a big factor in how you get promoted and advance in your career. We all have strengths and weaknesses. For career progression it’s generally accepted that you want to minimise your weaknesses to show that you are well rounded for the role you’re looking to be promoted into, as obvious weaknesses can count against us. This implies that we should always prioritise improving our weaknesses, but that’s not strictly true. You’ll get promoted based on your strengths, so these should also be a primary focus.
The first step to developing your strengths and weaknesses is identifying what they are. Your own self awareness can also go a long way here, but we’ve all got blindspots. Your manager should be the primary person to assist you with this. They should show you the competencies expected of you and areas where you’re exceeding expectations or need to work on. Ask for feedback from those you work with. If your company doesn’t have a competencies matrix or similar rubrics for your role you can take one from the internet like CircleCI’s Competency Matrix as a baseline.
Now that you’ve got your list of strengths and weaknesses to work on, do the research on how you can improve. Talk to experienced developers, managers or join communities that can help guide you on how to improve. You can find out what practices work for them and start building a learning plan. Try being as specific as possible, identifying sub-skills and working to develop them. Find opportunities to incorporate it into your normal work if possible.
Now that you’re doing the work of improving these competencies, you want to make this visible. Share what you learn; present on topics and teach others while you pair or review code. You want to show a mentor/manager how you are improving and for them to provide feedback and guidance along the way. Ultimately you want others to come to you for your knowledge and competence. You want to be known for being the expert in something.
Interest driven learning
Interest driven learning is free form, allowing you to follow what fascinates you. The topics you find interesting might be considered boring or chores for others. This is an opportunity because you’ll get energy from spending time here and these interests will give you a unique perspective.
For example, you might love good documentation and be passionate about this topic, so you’ll see value here where others see something to avoid.
If you’re lucky, you’ve found a role where the things you work on are also the things you’re passionate about. If that’s the case, take pride in your success. If, on the other hand, the topics you’re passionate about are things you can’t use at work, spend time here anyway because it will bring you joy and may be of benefit professionally in the future.
If you’re stuck on a dull or gruelling phase of a project, you might start to feel bored or disengaged from the work. This is an excellent opportunity to take time to research topics that interest you and excite you. It’ll give you a boost of energy to get through difficult times in a project.
Consider further exploring these interests in your personal time, as you never know where it’ll lead. The inventor of pokemon was a bug collector as a child.
Tooling driven learning
If I only had an hour to chop down a tree, I would spend the first 45 minutes sharpening my axe — Abraham Lincoln
Sharpen your axe, as regardless of what role you are in, you have tools that you use daily. You might use Visual Studio Code, Command Line, Miro, Jira, Excel, etc. If you become better at using these tools, you’ll get more efficient at your work. Faster, better quality and fewer defects. Some tools are higher leverage than others and can make a significant difference. Leverage is the ratio of value created to input required. The more value you can extract when using a tool, the more value you can create. Here are some ways to think about the tools you use that might determine where to invest your time
Leverage Ratio: Impact produced / Time invested
- How much time is spent by you using the tool?
- How often do you use the tool?
- How much untapped value is left in the tool?
- What advanced features exist in the tool? (you can’t use what you don’t know exists)
- What integrations are available for the tools you use?
- What tools are being misused? Are you seeing defects and waste produced?
- What tools do others struggle with? (Turn others weaknesses into your strength)
- What tools do I use infrequently but inform important decisions? (Tools that influence how you prioritise work should be sharpened. Metrics and analytics are important)
Spend some of your time here, but then get the experience of using what you learn. Remember, there is no value to sharpening your axe if you never actually chop down the tree.
Roadmap driven learning (problems)
Roadmap driven learning doesn’t just mean your product roadmap. It is a holistic roadmap that includes both product and technical items. Items can also be derived from other teams’ inputs such as UX, Architecture, DevOps or Testing. Here are a few ways to analyse the roadmap, which will help determine the focus of your learning and research time.
- Which items require new skills, tools or specific knowledge to implement?
- Which items have technical risk? What skills, tools or knowledge would be useful to mitigate that risk?
- What appears often on the roadmap? This could be observability, infrastructure, UI etc. Where frequency is high, small improvements can make a meaningful difference.
- What problems is the roadmap trying to solve? Are there opportunities to use new tools, technology or techniques to better solve these problems?
- What issues or friction points exist on the team that alternative solutions could significantly improve?
Prioritizing research time in developing solutions for roadmap items allows developers to showcase their skills in areas that will be valued by the company, as reflected by the priorities set on the roadmap.
Reflection
I’m not advocating that one way is better than any other. In my experience, each area has added value to my work. I’ve placed my focus on different areas at different times, but always try ensure that I’m not neglecting any one category. There is no need to follow a rigid structure here. You can simply maintain an awareness of where you are spending your time and make adjustments when necessary.