💸 Ditch your company development budget and start investing your own money to make real progress with your skills.

This topic is not only for the Scrum Masters, Agile Coaches or IT in general. It think it’s equally important to anyone wanting to play an active part in their own development.

First, think if these ring any bells?

• "this is out of scope of your role"

• "we don't know yet what the budget will be"

• "we are only investing in group trainings"

• "I don't see our company benefiting from this"

Why should others decide what is good for you?

📉Budgets and company rules often limit what you can choose. You either need to go for the mediocre or not exactly what you need.

Frequently, nobody knows how much money is left in the budget and it changes constantly.

This makes it hard to plan anything.

💡Instead, spend this money on conferences or negotiate a higher salary ditching the training budget.

Conferences don't give you knowledge yet secure access to networking and inspiration.

Visit only the best, e.g. AgileByExample, Agile People Sweden Conference, or an Agile Coach Camp.

💰 How I approach investing:

👉🏼 On average, I spend 5000 USD annually on workshops, mentoring, coaching or cohort courses.

👉🏼 I invest only in world-class knowledge from the source or in great trainers. These are often more expensive but help me level up like no other.

👉🏼 I treat my passions, side hustles or pet projects as equally important to finance.

• Kanban training is equally important as a school of reportage photography.

• Why? They boost my well-being, creativity and give me new perspectives and metaphors I can use at work.

• They also help me strengthen my body of work, earn more and feel safer on the market. Read more 👇🏼

Marcin Konkel @m_konkel

🚨 Why you should not follow a traditional career path as it will make your market obsolete in the end. The traditional career path was about climbing the corporate ladder from junior to senior, manager to head etc. You followed your profession along the ladder.

👉🏼 If something can be financed from the company budget, I never agree to sponsorship agreements.

• The company is either a great place to work for me or not.

• Forcing people to stay is not the solution. This only creates a prison for both parties.

🃏Once I started taking ownership of my education and skills, I never felt more freedom.

My recent investments:

• Digital writing cohort

• Mentoring sessions and workshops on photography

My planned investments:

• Kanban refresher training

• Team Topologies

• Cynefin bootcamp

How do you approach your growth? Did I miss anything? Eager to read your thoughts!

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🎈Share this post if you think it can help others make better decisions on their upskilling.