Below is my development plan for next year. I thought that by sharing it, this might prompt you to think about your own development plan. Even if you only achieve half of your goals over the next year, you'll be a long way ahead of those colleges who haven't made any effort to improve themselves. Just remember that it's your responsibility -- you need to own your career development. Your employer may be able to assist you from time to time, but often an employer can only offer the bare minimum, which in many cases isn't enough to keep your skills marketable.

Anyway, back to my list:

Build skills in Windows XP and .NET Server. Sure, I've read a lot of articles about both of these, but so far I haven't yet had the time to actually work with them. When I do have some spare time over the holiday period, I plan to upgrade one of my home lab machines to XP to get some hands-on exposure to the new features. Similarly, I'm also planning to work with the Beta 3 of Windows .NET server as soon as I have a chance. I don't think I'll be taking any Windows XP certification exams, however, since I already have my Win2K MCSE and I don't feel the differences between the two are large enough to warrant the effort.

Continue working with the Lotus Notes/Domino Rnext betas. Lotus Notes/Domino is one of my technical specialties, so I have an interest here in keeping up to date. I've been working with the previous beta drops and now beta 4 has just been released. When the final product is released, I will then take the upgrade exams to upgrade my CLPs in both System Administration and Application Development. The good news about keeping up to date in this way is that when this upgrade exam is released, I'll only need a couple of hours of cursory revision based on the exam objectives before taking it. Of course, this isn't really a shortcut since I'll have spent many hours beforehand working with and understanding the new features.

Get some hands-on exposure to Samba. Samba is an open-source project that allows Unix hosts (including Linux) to share files and printers on Windows networks. I already have a cursory knowledge of the topic, but I recently bought a book on the subject so I plan to get some hands-on exposure to setting this up in my home lab. Since I have interests in both Linux and Windows NT/2000, it seems like a good idea for me to delve deeper into Samba.

Learn more about .NET. Like many of you I've read about it and have some high-level ideas about .NET, but right now I don't feel that I know this as well as I think I should given how much focus Microsoft is putting on this. So I have bought a couple of books on the subject and hope to learn more early in the New Year.

Update my project management skills. This will probably be my only classroom education in 2002. The last project management class I took was over 10 years ago, and since then much has changed in this field. Since so much of our work in IT relates to projects, I feel it is important to upgrade my skills in this area. I have no intention in performing a project management role, but I do work extensively with project managers so I feel it's important to understand where they are coming from.

Grow some Citrix skills. After talking about it for the last 12 months, I'm planning to finally do some self-study on Citrix XP and earn the Citrix Certified Administrator (CCA) title. My firm is doing more and more Citrix work, so I need to know more about this technology. I'm not kidding myself that this will make me an expert in the area, but I should learn enough to talk intelligently to those that are (or think they are!).

It's probably also worth noting what I won't be doing. Although I'm a Novell fan from way back and think Netware 6 looks very interesting, I don't plan to upgrade my CNE. With work, my family and my MBA studies, I just don't have enough time to learn a technology that the market seemingly isn't interested in right now

So that's my plan. As you can see, the main thing I am primarily interested in skills growth, and this will include some gaining or upgrading of certifications. What will be in your development plan for 2002? What specialties will you hone? What new technologies do you plan to pick up? Let me know by posting below.