Turn Side Projects Into Wins At Work

Channel your passion into wins

Side projects are important. They help you channel your passion when you cannot explore that in your main project. But how do you turn it from a passion project into something bigger?

A few weeks ago, we discussed Side Quests. Chaitali shared about hers and how these side quests supercharged her career to become a Director at Google. For Path to Staff subscribers, use the code L1PHBT5 to receive a free two-week subscription to ChaiTime.

I've had a few side quests myself throughout my career. Some have failed, and some have succeeded.

But when I look back at them, I see a formula—steps to increase the chances of your side project succeeding—and I'll share it with you today.

Why bother shipping a side project

First off, let's make sure we know why we want to ship side projects:

• You want to share what you've learned on the side.

• You want to gather feedback.

• It's not just you – multiple people across the company are spending a lot of time on this problem, and you want to share how you solved it.

T…