Planning
This first stage of Continuing Professional Development is planning. By developing an action plan, you ensure that you take a structured approach to achieving your goals and you can also monitor you progress. This stage also helps you take a positive and constructive approach to realising your full potential.
Below is some step-by-step guidance about how to plan your development.
Step One: How do I know what I need to learn?
Identifying your development needs can be very difficult. Often we simply flick through the courses available and decide depending on which one looks most helpful. In fact, it is better to try and identify what the development need is and then to work out the ways of meeting that need, whether it be a course or not.
This CPD website offers a range of tools and guidance to help you identify your strengths and weaknesses and identify areas for development. These include interactive self-assessment questionnaires, analysis tools, matching your strengths against job requirements and asking others for feedback on your performance. You may wish to use the self-assessment questionnaires as a first step.
Professional Development also offers a Personal Development Planning course on its short course programme. During the course, participants will have the opportunity to:
- Gather feedback about themselves.
- Examine ways to map skills development with career development.
- Discuss ways to gain support and funding for personal development.
- Explore ways to record their Personal Development Plans using a variety of methods.
Step Two: Write yourself a Personal Development Plan (PDP)
Some people find it useful to write a Personal Development Plan that helps them to think about where they would like to be professionally and/or personally in the medium to long term. The advantage of a written plan is that you can keep looking back on your original goals and make sure that you are keeping to your targets rather than forgetting about them. Planning for the long-term will also help you advance in your career in the years to come.
A PDP doesn't have to be particularly worthy or ambitious but it should be genuine. If you would like to remain in your current job up until your retirement then your PDP should reflect this. Remember, however, that in the ever changing world of Higher Education, you may need to keep developing in order to stay in the same place.
To ensure that these plans are constructive and tangible and that progress against them can be monitored, the PDP should follow the format of S.M.A.R.T. objectives.
S.M.A.R.T. stands for.....
i.e. well defined. For example, I want to run a 10K race in under 50 minutes.
Use numbers, dates and times to represent clear objectives. For example, I want to achieve this race time by December next year.
Ask yourself, do you have the resources to achieve this objective? E.g. time, money, staff.
How important is the goal? Do you need to make it more realistic? Is it achievable in the time or do you need to break it down into smaller goals?
Give a deadline for achieving your goal.
Example PDP forms
There are many different PDP forms and some examples, which you may find useful, can be downloaded by clicking on the links below. All are equally valid so just choose the format that suits the way you work best.
Step Three: Reviewing and Updating Your Plan
It's worth noting that your PDP is not set in stone - you are likely to need to adapt it in order to reflect your and the University's changing needs. Also, after you have achieved one goal, you may find that you want to continue to improve in that area. Therefore, new S.M.A.R.T. objectives need be set and recorded.
Step Four: Action
Now that you have prepared your CPD plan, it's time to start putting it into action! For more information on developmental activities including useful links, qualification programmes and course dates, please see the Developing section of this website.