Development Planning is a Game You Can Win

Candy Crush Saga is a matching puzzle game introduced on Facebook in 2012, now available widely on iOS and Android devices. Everywhere I look, it seems people are playing this game. Sitting on a plane recently, I was amazed to find myself surrounded by players.

This kind of mindless task can be a fun stress reliever, but maybe there’s more to it than that. As I’ve watched people play, I realized there are some strong parallels between playing Candy Crush Saga and creating a career development plan.

On Candy Crush, if you get three, four or five candies matched in a row or column, those disappear, the candies cascade down, and you earn points. Similarly, when you complete an impactful action that helps meet all your developmental goals, it also has compounding results.

One example is delegation. Not only does it help you free up more time for strategic things, it helps develop your people, which is likely another goal that is important to you.

Leaders and managers have an enormous amount of responsibilities, yet the same 24 hours as everyone else. So let’s be smart and spend our time on actions that will have the biggest results.

For those working their way up to higher leadership positions, populate your development plan with the projects that will be stepping stones to your goals.

On Candy Crush, coconut wheels, sprinkle donut holes, and striped candy are known as boosters. These are special tools that help you advance in the game, which can be earned from friends or purchased. To boost your impactful career plan, you want to cluster together the strategies that will help you progress in more dimensions concurrently.

By investing in a well-written development plan that includes carefully chosen objectives and strategies, you’ll ensure that your actions will really count, and you’ll keep winning in your career.

A fellow Candy Crush player on the airplane taught me a trick to clear the bottom of the screen first, which initiates more movement across the board. Want some tricks that will help your team write and execute better and more impactful development plans? Learn more about how Onpoint can help.