The Peaks and Valleys framework for growth

A tool for evaluating career opportunities and building self-awareness

In the middle of 2018 I said goodbye to the agency I’d helped grow for 12 years to throw myself back into learning mode and get uncomfortable again. Before looking at a new role, or the next opportunity, I took a step back to look deeply at myself.

What did I care about? What was I unwilling to compromise on? Where were my biggest blind spots? What was I always super curious about that my current role didn’t easily allow me to explore? These were some of the questions I was looking to answer, so like any good designer, I did some research — on myself.

I wanted to create a framework that would help me evaluate whether a new role would give me the kind of growth opportunity I was looking for, so I created two lists — things that I valued, and areas for growth. The “Two List Method” didn’t have enough oomph, so instead, I call these my peaks and valleys.

Peaks

Peaks are the values that I’m unwilling to compromise on. These are values that I hold dear, would fight for, and would gladly shout from the mountain tops. Any new opportunity I took on needed to align with these values completely. Here are the peaks I’ve identified for myself. (Yours may look different, and that’s totally okay. Workbook below.)

• Diversity — Working with a diverse team that could push me creatively and professionally was very important to me. I truly believe the most innovative solutions come as a result of wildly varying life experiences and backgrounds.
• Craft — I spent twelve years honing my craft as a designer. I didn’t want to join a large company that valued innovation but forgot about the details.
• Growth — Any organization I joined would need to have a demonstrated commitment to team and personal growth. I was leaving a great position for this kind of growth trajectory, so I wanted to make sure they viewed growth in the same ways I did.
• Impact — I wanted to work on something meaningful. We all do. I also wanted to make sure that my skills and experience would allow me to have an impact on the organization.
• Scale — I didn’t just want to join a larger org, I wanted to tackle something huge. Not for the badge of honor, but because I knew I wanted to be in the trenches tackling big, messy design problems.
• Flexibility — I have two kids, and parenting requires a lot of flexibility. I’m also a human being, and life doesn’t only happen in off-work hours, so I need the ability to act like an adult and take care of things. Remote working was something I was also really interested in doing.
• Safety — Psychological safety. No team can achieve great things without trust. In my experience, that’s not always a given, and I wanted my new home to be somewhere I could be trusted to do my best work.

Valleys

Valleys, on the other hand, are gaps in knowledge and experience that a new opportunity would help fill in. I’d been thinking of these for a little while and had them well-documented, but your valleys may take a little more digging.

Think about areas of your discipline that you haven’t been exposed to, or a completely new area that you want to gain experience in. Maybe it’s the ability to focus more deeply on a certain problem space, or maybe you’ve only ever worked for massive enterprise organizations and want to get experience on a smaller team. Here’s my list of valleys:

• Working in a large organization — I’d spent most of my career navigating large organizations from the outside as a consultant, but I’d never worked in a company larger than 20 people. I had always wondered how design leaders operate across multiple locations with multiple internal stakeholders. That might sound awful to some, but to me it was a gap in my experience that I wanted to shore up.
• Having a single product focus — Working on products wasn’t new. I’d worked on products for some of the biggest companies out there, but I’d never been on an internal team focused on a single product or platform. I wanted the ability to go deep and track progress over time. You don’t typically get this opportunity in an agency setting.
• Having a boss again— It had been a good ten years since I technically had a boss to report to. I was a little worried about this one, but embraced the opportunity for mentorship and growth.
• Being part of a large design team — At the agency, our design team was six people at its largest. I wanted to be part of a much larger design team so I could be exposed to how design is run at that scale.

How to use the peaks and valleys framework

With this framework, I was able to look objectively at new opportunities and feel confident that I was making the right move by evaluating them against my own peaks and valleys.

But this framework can be used for so much more than evaluating a new role. Anyone who’s committed to growth can use it to evaluate any number of opportunities, and create more self-awareness. Some of the ways this framework could be used are:

• To identify opportunities for growth inside an existing role. Maybe you’re looking to level up — find out what your valleys are and look for opportunities that will help fill those in.
• To get clarity on your own values, and why they’re worth staying true to in your work, and in your personal life.
• To have better conversations around personal development. Have a personal development budget? Use this framework to identify events or materials that can help you shore up some experience and knowledge.
• Team growth and development. Identify the peaks you won’t compromise on for your team’s DNA, and use the valleys to identify lagging or lacking skills.

Identifying your own peaks and valleys

Self-reflection isn’t an easy thing for everyone to do, and sometimes we have blind spots we’re not aware of that are stopping us from progressing forward. To help you define your own peaks and valleys, I’ve created a handy workbook for you to use. Grab it here!

A great fit

For me, the sweet spot was finding an organization and team that aligned with my peaks and my valleys. After multiple interviews with some incredible organizations, I had my first interview with Shopify, and I knew I’d found a match. From the very first conversation, it was clear that Shopify and I valued the same things, and that my valleys would have ample opportunity to fill up through the work I’d be doing, alongside some of the most talented folks in the industry.

I’m currently the UX Manager for the International Growth team here at Shopify, and so far, it’s been exactly what I was looking for. I hope this framework helps you find that next step in your own career. Let me know in the comments if you’ve used this framework, and how we might make it better.