PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT 4
THE PERSONAL OR PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT PLAN
Whether you are an employee or self-employed, you need to develop and progress in your
career. If you stop learning, stop improving, it is very likely that you will start to stagnate.
Being comfortable leads to complacency, inactivity and slothfulness – you need to put
yourself in an environment where you will be stretched and where you can grow, both as a
person and as a professional.
A PDP – a personal OR professional development plan depending on which way you choose
to look at it – is a method of analyzing your current status and projecting your career into
the future in terms of what you want to achieve and how you are going to achieve it. You
could say that you are performing a SWOT analysis: looking at your strengths and
weaknesses along with opportunities presented to you and threats from competitors in the
industry.
Having discussed your education, your training and how they contribute to your CV and your
experience, this is another way of looking at your goals and developing ways in which you
can make yourself stand out against the rest.
The whole idea is to look at where you are now, look at where you want to be in two, five or
ten years time and then work out how you are going to get there. There will be milestones
along the way, stepping stones or intermediate goals for which to strive and you need to
think about ways in which you can recognize these points when you have reached them.
Often this will involve some further training, AUTOCAD or another language are examples
that spring to mind. Or you may just want to observe work in other areas, television, film or
events…
Something else to bear in mind here is timescale. How long are you going to allow yourself
to achieve some of these things? Don’t put it off – if you can get something done, do so –
the world won’t wait for you to catch up!
You might be in a position where your employer can help; either with a financial
contribution, or more usually by allowing you a certain flexibility with your hours so that you
can attend courses. Remember your development helps your company because it means
you become better at your job – it’s a win/win situation.
It is important to recognize that ambition is a positive quality in any employee. If an
employer can see that you have goals for which to strive, they will see that these are shared
goals, that your personal or professional development aids the company’s development and
that this drive will focus your work.
EXAMPLES
Templates for the PDP are freely available from the internet, but all will be based on the
simple premise above and the self-assessment principles below.
Formalizing this plan by developing it on paper might be seen as a purely academic exercise
although some of you may find it useful as a brain-training tool.
SELF-ASSESSMENT
To plan your development effectively you need to know where you are starting from - for
example are you numerate but could do with some work on your communication skills?
Self-Assessment encourages you to ask these questions and then to prioritize and plan your
own progress.
Self-Assessment is helpful when thinking about your career. If you know what you want to
do, comparing your strengths and weaknesses against your or your employer’s ideals will
help you identify areas on which you need to work. If you do not yet know what you want to
do, identifying your strengths can help you to think about the direction in which you might
like to go.
The Self-Assessment template asks you to plot your strengths and weaknesses according to
3 categories:
Intellectual Skills
Text analysis
The creative process and its development
Problem solving
Numeracy
Literacy
Adaptability/flexibility
Management skills
Political/diplomatic skills
Strategic or business analysis
Practical Skills
Real world experience
IT skills
Languages
Workshop and painting skills
Stagecraft skills
Budgeting
Driving
Score reading
Design, video and graphics
Lighting, Sound, AV, Automation
Interpersonal Skills
Leadership and teamwork
Planning skills
Communication
Resourcefulness
Organizational skills
Initiative
It is worth bearing in mind that if you analyze your skills using this method you will find that
most – if not all – of them are immediately transferable. Not only to other branches of our
own industry, but to other industries as well.
Strengths
Intellectual
Weaknesses
Strengths
Practical
Weaknesses
Strengths
Interpersonal/Transferable
Weaknesses
Think of these strengths and weaknesses in terms of job opportunities and what other
candidates might have to offer, where they might pose a threat. Where do you stand out
and where might you improve?
Know your competition: what do others know that you don’t? What are others doing that
you aren’t? Are you going wrong anywhere? Are you excelling at some things and not at
others?
You might also consider your shared skills. In terms of working with other people, which of
your own strengths are complimentary to those of others and where do your own strengths
support others’ weaknesses? You can also learn from colleagues, whether they are higher
up or lower down in the hierarchy. In your own or indeed other disciplines learn as much as
you can from others. Everything you do learn will inform your future direction, determine
how far you can go and what you can achieve.
Where are you going and what will hasten or improve your journey?
MCAS 2010