Researching for Optimal Career Progression

Memo Portfolio

Summary

I conducted user research consisting of interviews, horizon scanning, thematic analysis, and synthesis mapping, which resulted in developing a Futures Workshop, which produced strategic recommendations for improving talent management in the cyber-domain.

Insight

• Career progression is a vast collection of desires influenced by perspectives, power structures, work-life balance, training, and opportunities.

• Planning for such a diverse collection requires imagining multiple-future scenarios to find commonalities.

Outcome

Categorizing the trends provided by my research revealed exciting patterns and themes related to user concerns about the future of their career field. Triangulating my analysis with future trends reinforced initial findings and further refined research efforts around topics like system connectedness, data value, vulnerable working class, shadow work, and organization adaptation. The Futures Workshop used my research to formulate activities to produce scenarios related to emerging technology, skill erosion, etc., to create strategic action plans for career field management.

Lessons Learned

• Use additional mix-methods to examine research topics and questions

• Conduct sentiment analysis to establish interview engagement benchmarks

• Clarify the scope of the workshop due to the topic's complexity

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Design Artifact: Strategic Foresight Workshop

Using Miro, I adapted activities from Futures Thinking into a workshop framework to develop Strategic Foresight Scenarios. The workshop's goal was to explore several possible futures revealing risk management areas.

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