Action plan template personal development

Personal Development Plans?

Before we go on, to give you an idea of how this is going here’s some feedback from staff who participated in the trials so far:

Manager Comments: It generated some really useful insights and I think we both came away with a much clearer picture of where xxx is at and where his interests lie. The activities worked really well because xxx didn’t have an ultra-clear A -> B route in mind, so the large amount of time spent on generating ideas was well spent. We really liked how the action/plan grids help you visualize the ideas. Individual Comments: I never would have thought of some of the areas to action without this process. I’m better able to prioritize actions because of the process.

Because of the way we work at Redgate, rather than being overly prescriptive, what we’ve provided is a framework with detailed supporting instructions. We encourage users to adjust and experimentation as they go so there’s a few optional tweaks in here to give an idea of things we’ve tried.

Time & Energy

This takes a lot of time and effort (a minimum of 2 hours depending on how “chatty” the participant is) so you could consider breaking it up into 2 or 3 sub-meetings:

Current activities/direction Skills session (including one small next step) Actions brainstorm around common themes (using action grid)

(I’d still aim for running one straight-through session first time around as the energy from doing it all in one shot is fantastic)

When managing the session avoid the instinct to time-box each step. It’s better to reserve more time and let each part play out naturally.

This can be quite an exhausting session for both participants and we know one size won’t fit everyone so it’s worth setting expectations that this is hard work. I’d recommend running this when all participants have a lot of energy (e.g. start at ~9-10AM)

Getting Ready

Before you start make sure you have a decent space to work in with no distractions and plenty of time. You’ll need about 2 hours but give yourself 3 so you have some slack. You don’t have to use it all and it’s surprising how good people feel when they think they’ve recovered some time back.

Grab a room, a pile of stickies and some markers. (Did I mention you’ll need to use a lot of space? – We typically use 3 walls of a meeting room).

We recommend writing up the headings on stickies beforehand but don’t post them up on the walls until the participant is at the stage they’re needed. Focus on 1 thing at a time – single piece flow!

Step 0 – What are we trying to achieve?

Talk the participant through the process and agenda – give them some idea of what’s ahead and the time and effort expected. Then as you progress, state where you are in the process and why at each step so the developee understands what they’re meant to be thinking about and what’s left to do. As we’re looking at similar things from multiple angles to find patterns, there’s not always a logical progression through activities. This is deliberate but can sometimes feel a bit “bumpy” so it’s worth setting expectations around this too.