Having a personal strategy can increase your odds of achieving success (however defined) in your life. This does not mean your life will play out as you plan but rather that you can and should have an active role in creating and shaping opportunities available to you. If you think about it, individuals are similar to firms in that that they both:

1.    Possess unique resources and capabilities
2.    Face constraints (e.g., limited time, energy, social capital, etc.)
3.    Can only capture value if value was originally created

Just as a firms success can result from external trends and luck but also from their deliberate strategy, the same is true for personal success. However, your personal strategy can be better or worse at preparing you to capitalize on these trends or luck. This assignment asks you to develop and communicate your personal strategy using concepts from the class. Just like any firm, youll want to:

1.    Understand the macro-environment and external trends that will likely affect your success (e.g., trends in the industry youll be working in, etc.)
2.    Identify your resources and capabilities (discussing internal, external, and dynamic (in)consistencies within yourself and with your environment)
3.    Utilize other course concepts (at least two)
a.    For example, you could discuss the resource relatedness between different aspects of your life, and explain how diversifying your experiences actually creates more value in each aspect of your life than would have been created individually

The deliverable has two components.  The first component is a write-up of your personal strategy. Please draw on the article on Blackboard or in the HBSP coursepack. How Will You Measure Your Life? for some elements that you may want to include in your personal strategy. This portion should be approximately two to three double spaced pages. The second component should be a description of a day in your working and personal life if you have assuming you have successful executed your personal strategy. Pick a specific date in the future, at least five years from now, and write a detailed description of your day. Think of this a visioning exercise. The vision should have a future date on it this is essential (it could be a specific day or month, but it must have some date).  It should be written in the present tense though it describes a state in the future. It should contain specifics and images (descriptions) of this future state.  This portion should be approximately two pages double spaced. 

The Strategic Careers Paper will be evaluated out of 100 points as follows:

1)    Required topics (25 points)
a)    Did the writer clearly address the three points as mentioned in the description? (15 points)
b)    Did the writer draw on some of the topics from the How Will You Measure Your Life article (10 points)
2)    Use of Course Content (25 points)
a)    Did the writer use course content and/or theoretical frameworks and connect it directly to matters in the case or in the article(s)? (10 points)
b)    Did the writer use the course content and or theoretical frameworks correctly? (15 points)
3)    Clarity and Technical Aspects (30 points)
a)    Was it easy for the reader to see that case questions were answered? (5 points)
b)    Was the document well written and clear? (10 points)
c)    Was the document free of spelling errors, grammatical errors? (10 points).
d)    When using materials outside of the case or the class did the author provide a citation or link showing where they drew the evidence? (5 points)
i)    Any format for citation, – APA, MLA, Chicago, is acceptable.
ii)    OWL/Purdue is a great resource for citations, https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/purdue_owl.html
4)    Fictional Future Day (20 points)
a)    Did the writer put a future date on the writeup? (5 points)
b)    Does this vision seem attainable? (not fantastical or wish fulfilment) (5 points)
c)    Does this vision logically follow from the personal strategy statement?(5 points)
d)    Does the writer provide specific details, images and descriptions of this future state? (5 points)

Further explanation

Again, please read the syllabus to make sure that you have hit all of the points. But here are also three further things to think about:

A)    There is an article by Clayton Christensen called How Will You Measure Your Life that I fully recommend that you read. It will give you some ideas about how you can think about a strategy for your career. You will find a copy of it in the Case Write Up Folder on Blackboard

B)    There are lots of different ways that you can think about how to write this assignment. In years past, some students have thought about their professional lives, and considered their own skillsets as resources and the job market as a competitive setting.  You can imagine talking about inimitability, synergies between skills, etc. in that context. Some students think about other aspects of life more broadly.  Students have applied these concepts to their relationships, to family matters, and to religion. These are just some of the ways you could go. As long as you think about the things listed in the assignment as written on the syllabus you will be on the right track

C)    Get creative with the description of your future day! Specific details help. In the past when I have had students do the visioning exercise, they have found that in doing the visioning they have actually revised some of the thoughts about the strategic career plan. So really get into it!