I confess it didn’t occur to me until then.
Don’t you wish that you had better project experiences?
Experiences of working in cutting edge technology, better business domain, industry hot buttons – the list seem endless. But the number of great projects we have worked on seems a handful.
I know this because I have been there…always thinking – why my project experiences are not good enough. I deserve to be working on better projects.
Until that day. When my customer rather casually mentioned it. About the then-ongoing project.
She said, “All projects are good or bad. Your experience in this project is as good as what you learn, reflect, and apply in your future projects.” It took some time for me to digest that.
It simply meant a good project experience is good as long as we learn from the project, reflect, and internalize the learning and when the opportunity comes up, we apply the experience.
It didn’t occur to me until she said this.
As I reflected, I found out that my actual project experiences should have been much more than what I have thought. I have worked in some small development projects where I learnt core fundamentals of J2EE programming, designed solutions, where learnt about business of the customer. I have also been part of technology assessment and product evaluation programs.
As I thought deeper, I had realized – had I introspected hard enough, I could have maximized the working experience of development, design and product evaluation. By introspecting and internalizing the work, the ‘work’ becomes richer ‘experience’.
As it occurred to me, I reflected all project work done. What I did & learnt, what I messed up with and learnt better. My journal became a series of case studies. Full of richer ‘experience’ and richer than my CV.
Can you pls do a small exercise?
List down the three most memorable projects you have worked in the last 5 years?
Put three bullet points to describe the business context of each project
Add three bullet points to describe the tech context in each project?
Add what you learnt those projects?
Reflect for 5 minutes on each project and try to figure out how those experiences led you to today?
Do you see how powerful the exercise is? Is there a bulb-on moment for you?
If you have liked this exercise, please post a liner on what is your most special thought after the exercise – in the comments section below.