The POWER Framework - 

Achieving Goals Just as Planned

The iPOWER or simply POWER framework is a powerful method to operationalize achievements in any field of work and can be applied to improve human mindset and grow from being someone to being the 'extraordinary' one with an Impactful outcome. 

The first I: The first I focuses on the work you need to accomplish to set a strong foundation - Prepare, Orient and Work you put in to become an expert in what you want to achieve. Webster dictionary defines an expert as someone 'having, involving, or displaying special skill or knowledge derived from training or experience'

Prepare: While planning is good, preparing to be what you want to be defines and creates a vision of what you want to achieve. At a broad sense, think of 4Fs - Family, Friends, Fitness and Finance and plan your future with specifics of what you want to be in short term and long term for each of the F - use the attached spreadsheet for reference and add as many goals as you have under each category. Imagine what you are after 2/5/10/20 years from now and work backwards on what you need to do achieve your future self and be successful. Fix your vision and mission with a roadmap using S.M.A.R.T goals methodology. 

Orient and Organize things into Order: Orient and Organize your plan for each hour, day and week as appropriate as a discipline to follow; fix your tasks and targets without compromising on the 4Fs. Prioritize your tasks and remember, Discipline takes you to Destiny. 

Work: Work hard and party harder. There is no shortcut than working hard when you have a plan in order and a mission in progress. Eliminate the habits and distractions that won't help your mission. At the same time, do not forget to celebrate smaller milestone achievements during the process and decompress. 

The Second I: The second I in the framework focuses on the results that you will achieve by extending your outreach. Typically, most of us do all the hard work with short term goals or because our job demands it. But, the idea or framework could be something which can be applied to the larger world and the ones who take this to the next level create an impact on the society beyond their job. To be able to do this, you need to extend your work to larger group, validate the applicability, check results from your current work and continue to work on improvements to make it applicable. The more impact you create will enlarge the idea and enable a broader view toward ultimate goals.  For example, if Mark Zuckerburg limited his social platform to his university, would Facebook be this big? -or if Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia were satisfied with limiting the extra bed for extra income to just their extra room, would AirBnB emerge? 

That is the vision the second 'I' will have for your work. Think Big - engage the right people, take feedback and iteratively revise your targets until the conflicts are resolved and the benefits of your success is achieved. 

Engage and Extend: Engage with people of similar interests and learn to bring value to them and gain expertise in the process. Extend your network with the people of inspiration in the field of your work and byond to gain additional perspective. Networking is the key for success in the modern world.

Review, Retrospect and Repeat: Important part of the journey is by the end of every month, do the RRR - Review what you have done, Retrospect what could have been better and Repeat the good things and define progress for next steps. 

It is important to remember the 4Fs that are part of your journey: Family, Friends, Fitness and Finance. Ensure they are clearly defined and routinely reviewed and revised as needed, attending to each element during each iteration.  

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Applicability and Results

I have applied this framework to onboard our company IT Operations with Site Reliability Engineering culture and practices using POWER framework as an action within the STAR methodology and SMART goals. However, this method can be applied to any task to be achieved not limited to below examples



Why is this method unique

The POWER framework is unique in emphasizing on the two aspects which make this applicable to variety of situations  from science, health planning to reinstating the human relations which are typically not part of most frameworks 

- the 'O' for Orientation and Organizing the current things into order which concerns the current situation of the entity or an individual and 

- the 'R' for verifying the results so far with retrospection and repeating the POWER loop

- explores the power of 'I' at various stages of your work. 


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