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Shopify2023-10-18Tutorial
The AWARE Development Plan
Summary
The AWARE Development Plan presents a structured way to pursue long-term goals in software development, education, dance, or other areas of interest. David Ward developed it after seeing team members struggle to define their growth paths and describes using a similar process for his own goals. AWARE stands for Aim, Work Back, Achieve, Reflect, and Encore: define the desired outcome, work backward into smaller aims, execute measurable objectives, learn from the result, and maintain the plan. Short- and medium-term aims act as checkpoints, allowing people to identify missing experience, seek opportunities, and course-correct. Ward recommends reviewing the plan with a lead or manager, including during weekly one-on-ones, to select next steps, connect opportunities to aims, and ensure completed aims are reflected on.
Context
People may have long-term career or personal goals but lack a clear sequence of steps for reaching them. The plan is presented as a way to clarify what must be true to achieve a goal, identify development areas and opportunities, answer what comes next, and detect detours early enough to course-correct.
Approach / What changed
AWARE uses five stages: Aim at a long-term outcome, Work Backward to define smaller achievable aims, Achieve aims with clear objectives and measurable success, Reflect on learning and follow-up goals, and use Encore to maintain the plan. The plan is reviewed with a lead or manager, including in weekly one-on-ones, and updated as aims and opportunities change.
Takeaways
AWARE breaks a long-term goal into short- and medium-term aims that provide checkpoints for tracking progress and identifying when course correction is needed.
Reflection follows each completed aim and asks what was learned, whether the expected value was achieved, what should change next time, and which new aims should be added.
The development plan is maintained over time by reviewing completed aims, new opportunities, timeline progress, and opportunities to connect other tasks to planned development.
Source and freshness
- Source
- shopify.engineering
- Published
- Added to Yomu
- Last updated
Summaries are generated from the original by a language model. Check the original before relying on it.
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