I would like to change profile from developer to Navision PM. I’m quite young - 24 y.o. Have 2 university bachelor degrees (Informatics, Economics). Have Nav Developer exams and 5 years of Navision development practice (including freelancing). For now I’m quite bored of being developer. The reason is that I’m not satisfied with situation - I know that I can do much more, but my company is not able to offer (salary) me realizing (burocracy) my ideas and myself (maybe too young?) also. I want to extend my skills not only on paper but in real situations. I feel that I know what client wants and what should be offered for him, but I can’t rule this process, it get’s me crazy. Maybe it’s the problem of being a freelancer for 2 years? I need your suggestions - what must be done next? How to develop career and earn more money and improve skills - to reach full satisfaction of life I would like to make some kind of a plan, to hear suggestions and so on from other gurus. And at last to write some kind of success (or not) story blog (career kamasutra) with full description of steps and analysis. I don’t want to die being developer!!! Any suggestions/comments are welcomed?
This is a very interesting topic. One very close to me, since this is exactly what I do, and an area in which I want to help more people be successful at.
The first thing is really to work out what your short term goals are. ( think you know what your long term goals are, and that’s a good start). firstly you mention,
Well although both of these as long term goals make sense, in the short term, you need to decide, a/ do you want to make money now, or expand your skill set. the reason is that if you are out there learning, then its hard to get clients to pay you top dollar. I would suggest that you concentrate now more on the learning side. And fundamentally that can be done either by making lots of mistakes or learning from other peoples mistakes. So you want to work with someone that can mentor you, and give you the chance to develop your skills. If on the other hand, short term profitability is the goal, then stick with programming.
Actually a very good question! A question you can never ask you self too early. And you would actually find many examples amoung our members on “who to do this”. Many of the “good people” out here (and in the industry in general) have all started as a developer, but made it far longer. But then again you also find many of our members who are “happy programmers” - who simply loves to do just that.
I will write a blog entry about this issue as soon as I get the time to do this…
David said: Well although both of these as long term goals make sense, in the short term, you need to decide, a/ do you want to make money now, or expand your skill set. the reason is that if you are out there learning, then its hard to get clients to pay you top dollar. I would suggest that you concentrate now more on the learning side. And fundamentally that can be done either by making lots of mistakes or learning from other peoples mistakes. So you want to work with someone that can mentor you, and give you the chance to develop your skills. If on the other hand, short term profitability is the goal, then stick with programming. David, so for the long term goal of learning, do you suggest to work with a NSC, rather than a s a freelancer???
In your post you say that you know what the customer wants, but can’t ‘rule the process’. I think that means that you aren’t making the final decisions what choices your company should offer the client. I try to discover why that is. You will probably find that it is only indirectly related to your skill with NAV, and has more to do with how much credibility you have, how you perceive problems, and present and market your ideas. I think you’ll find that if you can develop in these areas (it’s hard, I know!), you’ll be able to ‘rule the process’ more and that may be even more fufilling than making more money.
How to develop career and earn more money and improve skills - to reach full satisfaction of life