Welcome back to our series, “Behind the Scenes of Immersive One”! The following is a conversation with AmyMillard, Product Manager for Immersive One, and RebeccaSchimmoeller, Lead Product Marketing Manager. Today, we’re talking about how you can grow your professional cache with help from Immersive One’s new NIST NICE Heat Map.
“POV: Being told to sit through training knowing what’s been assigned won’t take you where YOU want to go. ”
Rebecca: You’re not kidding, Amy! That’s pure pain, no matter what your role is. Finding time to exercise amidst the fray is hard enough, perhaps especially for those of us in cyber security.
Amy: Exactly. If you’re an analyst and you hear your boss talking about the NIST NICE Framework, you may default to thinking you’re in for a lot of busy work to meet compliance audits.
For me, building out the NIST NICE Heat Map for Immersive One has been a labor of love. Because the way we’ve approached it connects the dots for everyone in the organization, from analysts all the way up to the C-suite.
Rebecca: I got that about you, Amy. You seemed as dialed in to the value for practitioners as to what the Heat Map would show execs.
Amy: Truly. Frameworks have a reputation for being “manager-ware,” but they’re also a powerful tool for career growth. If you’re an analyst, your value is often trapped in a black box. You know you’re a pro at Vulnerability Analysis, but how do you prove that in a way that’s objective and recognized globally?
The NIST NICE Heat Map aligns every lab you complete to the 41 official NIST NICE Work Roles. That means your activity becomes a high-fidelity "resume" that updates in real-time. It’s not just a dashboard for your boss; it can support individuals’ career growth.
Rebecca: I love that. It’s completely transforming perspective from "I did X hours of training" to "I show 71% alignment with a Tier 2 Incident Responder role." When your manager can see your progress and how it supports team-wide readiness, that’s powerful.
But there’s another side of this—the spots on the map that aren’t showing full readiness. What does that mean to practitioners?
Amy: Think of it from a manager’s perspective: the fastest way to lose a high-performer is to mandate training they don't need. The Heat Map helps managers be more deliberate in who exercises on what capability. If your map shows you're missing a specific piece of the puzzle—like Knowledge statement K0716—you get assigned that piece. No more sitting through a whole 4-hour "Cyber 101" course.
Assignments become much more intentional, so you know that when you’re assigned an exercise, you’re being asked to focus on what matters most to your role and the organization’s need areas.
Rebecca: I love that. You’re swapping busy work for actual professional development. It’s a lot easier to feel motivated when you know every lab is making you more indispensable—and that your boss is seeing those wins update every single morning.
Amy: Every morning at 0300 GMT, in fact! If you’ve been grinding, your readiness profile reflects that the very next day. It makes your commitment visible to the people who matter most to your career, without you having to manually report what you’ve been tackling.
Rebecca: It’s the "show, don't tell" of career progression. Final question, Amy: If I’m an analyst and my Manager recognizes the platform content only covers 70% of a very niche role I want to master, what’s my next move?
Amy: Well, if your manager sees you’ve maxed out the available "Heat" for a role, it sets up a conversation about what’s next for you. They may see an opportunity to use AI Lab Builder to develop custom content for your role. But remember, the map also helps your manager identify where there are capability gaps across the team. You may be positioned to help your Manager close one of those.
Rebecca: Wow, turning what you thought was a compliance tool into a career ladder?
Amy: Exactly. The data can work for you as much as it can for your organization.
Final Thought
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