How far can Instructional Design take you?

Please don't miss the freebies at the end of the article! This is my first post for the year. I was hibernating for the first 38 days. Assimilating lessons learned, shedding limitations, doing what life sent my way, and simply enjoying.
Without much ado! I come back to our topic. How far can ID take you? Well! It depends on where you are on the continuum and where you started. If you are an Organic learner, and Organic ID, who learned ID on the job, then the options might be limited. If you are from a specific field, such as Human Resources, Talent Management, and did or are doing ID as a part of that team or job, then you have more choices. So, wherever you are, I assume you know of the some growth paths, such as Project Management, Senior Designer, Team Leader, Group Manager, Business Head and so on.
This article is about moving forward, about exploring options, and therefore brings forth what else you can do. In this article, we will see what are some of the possible options, and what opportunities do they open up for you.

Some options for an Organic ID:
1. Take a leadership role in ID and become a design consultant: Focus on enhancing your current skill set. Attend webinars and stay ahead of the rest by learning and experimenting new methods and strategies.
2. Talent Management or People Capability: Study Talent Management, attend a course. Then move into the HR department.
3. Start delivering Softskill trainings, such as leadership trainings, conflict management. Move into HR or start your own.
4. Become a Coach.
Remember for all the options, the underlying principle is to invest. Investment is at two levels, one at the level of time. Make sure you spend time to architect your career.


Two, invest money to enhance your skills. It is your life! Do not hesitate to spend 10%-15% of your earnings on building your skills.

Now, what do options 1-3 do for you? They open up opportunities for you to get into the HR domain. Every industry has an HR department. Imagine your options. Once you are in HR, there are several paths, learning and development, Organizational Development, Training design, and Curriculum design. You can then look at charting your path up. A good combination will be to combine softskill training, talent management, or leadership training skills.

Now, let's take a look at Coaching. Coaching is a powerful learning tool. Being a certified Coach myself, I can vouch for the effectiveness of Coaching methods.
Coaching is a career that you can take up at whatever point you are in your ID career journey. Else, you can get an opportunity much later to make a parallel shift for example from a Business Group head to become HR head.

If you are ready to architect your career, and want to do it effectively what better than a Career and Life coach.

If you are curious to learn how effective is Coaching, then what better than experiencing Coaching.


Become a fan of the facebook page below and you can avail a free Career or Life coaching session.

http://tinyurl.com/careerandlifecoaching

Join the page now and then send an email at sonia@abinitiolearning.com.


Note:If you are an Organic ID then you seriously need to look at what are your options. Ask the question: how many organizations offer an opportunity for an ID, which industry domains do I fit into, is my career limited to a handful organizations? Well, it is true that you might stagnate if you don’t seriously consider architecting your career.
Note: Pause and ask yourself. Do I believe that the environment has defined a career path and I have to only work hard to keep moving up. Have you realized that the path narrows and becomes steep as go up? Don’t unconsciously take whatever is available as a growth path. Working hard to grow on the given path is one, but to plan, choose a path, and plan a backup different.


Earlier articles:http://learningandprojectmanagement.blogspot.com/2009/12/how-far-can-instructional-design-take_25.html