Start Designing YOU
We’ll guide you through each step and show you how you can use the process to support decision-making. This process isn’t new or revolutionary. In fact, almost every product manager follows a similar path to develop the products you use every day. We’ve just adapted it to design you.
Step 1 — Becoming your Product Manager
Step 1 walks you through the seven key attributes of a product manager and why you must adopt these to become the champion of your life. A great product manager:
1. Is intentionally curious.
2. Thinks about the whole.
3. Is empathetic.
4. Gets feedback early and often.
5. Relies on evidence, not simply intuition.
6. Is resilient.
7. Is accountable.
Step 2 — Exploring the Current YOU
Step 2 is about reflecting on the you that you are today. It involves exploring your personality, knowledge and skills right now. We all live our lives in the bubble that is our home community, family and friends, so a big part of this first step is getting out of that comfort zone and being inspired by the world and the people around you. This inspiration is your launching pad for the Whole YOU.
Step 3 — Building your Design Team
Step 3 focuses on the team effort required to design you. We’ll explore the value of your relationships and from this, you’ll form your design team of experts who will support and guide you through the Designing YOU process.
Step 4 — Defining the Professional YOU
Step 4 focuses on exploring career options. First, you’ll evaluate what you love to do and what you’re good at, then you’ll explore how to leverage it to make a living. By the end of Step 4, you will start to have a vision of the future Professional YOU.
Included in the Professional YOU is a series of Designing YOU Career Guides written to support your work down this path. These Career Guides are complimentary, and deal with some of the crucial questions facing anyone exploring their Professional YOU.
Each guide includes a series of Career Mission Maps that provides examples of how you can chart a course to achieving your professional mission. If you'd like to start by exploring our range of Career Mission Maps, click here to search our Designing YOU Mission Map Gallery.
Step 5 — Defining the Whole YOU
Step 5 is when you will discover how your Professional YOU fits into your Whole YOU. The Whole YOU is about how you define success. You’ll think about where you want to live, the people you want to be around, the importance of your bank account and other factors that matter to you. The alignment of all this is the Whole YOU.
Step 6 — Defining your Product Roadmap
Step 6 is possible after you’ve identified your destination in Step 5. The roadmap will allow you to implement the Whole YOU. Every decision you make in pursuit of the destination now has a purpose. There are many paths to this destination, some direct, others slower and scenic. We encourage you to take some of the scenic drives and explore. In fact, taking a side route may change your destination and guide you toward a different Whole YOU. This is the value of exploring, adapting and changing.
Step 7 — Telling your story
Step 7 recognizes that having the best product that no one has ever heard of or cares about is called “going out of business.” Your story is how you’ll connect to the audience you care about and how you’ll make them care about you. You’ll figure out what you can offer the world and develop a strategy to communicate it. Your story has to be so compelling that they can’t wait to be part of what happens next.