Your personal development plan is a template that you can use to develop your skills, your knowledge and your career. It is used alongside Performance Reviews and 360° feedback to:
- Establish your aims and objectives
- Clarify where you want to go in your professional development
- Identify what steps you need to take to get there
- Track progress over time
It is a living document that you should update whenever you need to, but you should review it after every Performance Review and 360.
The best way to explain how to update a PDP, is to show one in action, so you can see an example Personal Development Plan here.
What do I put in my PDP?
The PDP is a tool for you so that you can focus on your professional and personal development goals. What you put into it is going to be driven by your own aims and objectives, and your manager will support you in uncovering these. Some examples of things you could put in your PDP:
- Technical skills that you want to improve upon, e.g. Gutenberg, React, Security, etc
- Areas of behaviour you want to improve upon, including communication skills, addressing problems, transparency
- Areas of competency you would like to develop, e.g. knowledge of agile, business planning skills, management
- Courses you want to take, such as Excel training, facilitation skills, coaching techniques, pitching skills
- General things that you want to get better at, such as giving feedback, dealing with difficult conversations, interacting with clients
How and when should I update my PDP?
At a minimum, it’s worth updating your PDP after a Performance Review or a round of 360 feedback. It’s a good place for you to make note of the things that you would like to improve upon, and you can also check in with how you are progressing with your previous items.
After your review call with your manager for your Performance Review or 360, go away and review your PDP and add any items that you think you would like to work on. On your next call with your manager, you can review these and see how they can help you.
How else is my PDP used?
The people who have access to your PDP are:
- your manager
- Siobhan
- Tom, Joe, and Noel
Once a quarter, Siobhan will review all of the PDPs to see where there are common themes emerging. Where there are multiple people who want to work on the same thing we can look at larger training or development programmes for bigger groups. Any data used will only be in aggregate and won’t identify individuals. Siobhan will message you directly to ask permission if there is something she feels would identify you.