Personal Development Plan

After completing my bachelor’s degree, I see my development progressing in two phases. First, I want to continue growing as a product manager within a larger company working on consumer products, technology or services. Longer term, I want to use this experience to create my own venture focused on empowering people whose needs are often treated as edge cases.

My internship at Signify and my Final Bachelor Project both showed me that impact depends on more than a strong concept. Products also need to be desirable, feasible, viable, understandable, adoptable and sustainable. Therefore, I want to develop in product management, where I can work at the intersection of user needs, business strategy, technology and market realities.

Development goals

Goal 1: Identify and shape product opportunities from insight to launch

During my internship, I often took responsibility for projects that were already underway. In the next stage of my development, I want to become involved earlier in the product development process: identifying promising opportunities from user and market signals, shaping them into clear value propositions, and carrying the direction towards development and launch. I want to improve my ability to combine focus group findings, quantitative survey results, existing user data and portfolio gaps into well-argued product opportunities. I will evaluate this through evidence such as opportunity proposals, value propositions I helped create, stakeholder feedback, and product decisions or launch directions I contributed to.

Goal 2: Become more decisive in moving from exploration to action

One of my current development points is that I can go too far down a rabbit hole at the beginning of a project. I sometimes keep exploring possibilities when I should be deciding whether an idea is strong enough to continue, based on factors such as user need, market size, feasibility or strategic fit. In other cases, the idea is promising, but I need to start making and testing sooner rather than thinking through every detail first. I want to develop a clearer sense of when to stop, when to pivot and when to build. I will practise this by setting earlier decision points, defining what evidence is needed before continuing, and using quick prototypes or tests to move ideas forward.

Goal 3: Build towards a future inclusive venture

Longer term, I want to create products or services that use innovative technology to support older adults, people with disabilities and people with additional needs. My aim is not to create separate solutions that make these users feel like exceptions, but to design interventions that strengthen independence, confidence and participation in everyday life. To prepare for this, I want to keep building knowledge in product strategy, business models, adoption, accessibility and inclusive research, so that future ideas are not only meaningful, but also desirable, scalable and realistic.

This long-term direction connects directly to my professional identity and vision. By first learning how products succeed in the market, I hope to avoid creating ideas that only work conceptually. Instead, I want to build the strategic, technical and entrepreneurial foundation needed to create inclusive products that can genuinely reach people and have lasting impact.