Project: You

For Microsoft's Adam Rauch, 31, it was a choice between building on a strength and starting something new. He joined Microsoft as the first program manager for Visual Basic, a software tool now used by 3 million programmers around the world. He led the product team through the launch and a major revision. He became a rising star -- so much so that he tutored Bill Gates on the intricacies of the product's code. Then it was time for yet another revision. Rauch decided to let work start without him. He jumped to a new project within the company.

"Visual Basic had created an industry," he says. "I like being able to say, 'I was there at the beginning.' Then I asked myself, Can I do it again? Was I just along for the ride, or was I instrumental in creating it? I wanted a new challenge."

For Universal Creative's Tawny Halbert, 25, it was a choice between work that was glamorous and work that she enjoyed. She had spent eight months on the project team that created Dante's Peak, a high-profile attraction at Universal Studios Hollywood Theme Park. Now it was time to settle on her next assignment. Would she help build the highly anticipated Terminator 2 exhibit -- or a simple buffet restaurant within the park? She chose the restaurant, largely because the project would be completed in one year, rather than the three it would take to create T2.

"I like shorter projects," Halbert says. "Being out on the site and dealing with people is more rewarding than sitting in my cubicle doing paperwork. Plus, shorter projects leave you open to more opportunities. It's hard to be on a three-year project and watch all these other opportunities pass you by."

For Hewlett-Packard's Michael Cyr, 42, it was a choice between staying on a well-defined career path and paving a road of his own. Cyr had spent 18 years at HP as a manufacturing technician with clear assignments and responsibilities. Today he is the ultimate internal freelancer, working on a handful of self-designed projects that range from plant-safety initiatives to intranet design.

"I had maxed out on technical things," he says. "So I looked at myself, looked around the company, and started doing what I wanted to do. Sometimes I think, What have I gotten myself into? But I'm inspired. I just need to manage my projects so I don't burn out."

Decisions, decisions. Not so long ago, people like Adam Rauch, Tawny Halbert, and Michael Cyr had to make one big career choice: which company to join. Then they would start climbing a well-defined ladder of promotions until they retired. Those days are gone for good. How many people can stick with one company for their entire career? How many would want to, even if they could? And among the few who do, how many follow a recognizable progression of jobs and titles? Almost all work today is project work. Your success inside a company -- and the long-term course of your career -- depend on the value of the projects you work on.

"In the past, career management meant, Get the org chart and plot a line as far up as possible," says leadership guru and Harvard Business School Professor John Kotter, author of The New Rules: Eight Business Breakthroughs to Career Success in the 21st Century (Free Press, 1997). "That's not the name of the game anymore. You need to figure out what skills will be relevant in the future and to map out projects to develop those skills."

Susan Campbell, a change consultant based in Sebastopol, California and the author of From Chaos to Confidence: Survival Strategies for the New Workplace (Simon & Schuster, 1995), could not agree more. "The workplace of the future is going to be organized according to jobs that need doing, and that means a project-oriented workplace," she argues. "Even if you never show it to anybody, open a file called My Ongoing, Ever-Expanding Resume of Projects I've Done. There will be a time when you need it."

Reasonable propositions. But they raise some obvious questions: How do you figure out which projects you should join? Where and when do you look for your next project? How do you document the results of your work? Answering these and other questions is a project in and of itself. Fast Company offers this do-it-yourself project manual to answer the six most important questions about your most important project -- you.

Which Projects Are Best for Me?

Here's a simple question that remarkably few people can answer: If you could work on any project in your company, which would it be? There's no right answer, of course. But finding projects that are right for you means thinking hard about four related questions: How much can I learn? How much can I contribute? How important is the project? Who is the leader?