Personal Development Planning
By Kath Evans
Nursing Standard
Jun 3, 2003

Continuing professional development is a central part of every trust employee's life as a means to keep pace with change. A personal development plan (PDP) is a co-ordinated plan that is made to facilitate growth and development of an individual. This resource aims to provide assistance, indicating how these needs are best identified, and vitally where resources can be found to support the PDP when it has been compiled.

What are the benefits of devising a personal development plan?

Devising a PDP provides you with the opportunity to pay attention to your personal and career aspirations. This plan will be personal to you. It will be whatever you decide to incorporate into your plans and it will record your decision. You may decide to make it a year-long plan, a three-year plan or longer - the choice is yours. A PDP simply provides a framework to guide you in your pursuit of development and advancement. It is vital to identify what your personal and professional development aspirations are to ensure there is commitment to their delivery.

A PDP works best when developed in conjunction with the individual performance review. Your line manager is a key person to help you develop and implement your plan.

Compiling a personal development plan can:

* Identify where you are now.
* Encourage you to recognise your strengths and areas to improve.
* Motivate you to set realistic and achievable goals.
* Provide a tool to evaluate your achievements.

1. Where do I start? Review yourself

Start with a little self-examination. Analyse your strengths and needs, the opportunities and challenges you feel are open to you and your likes and dislikes.

Some other questions that may be useful at this stage will include:
* Do you have an outstanding area of concern about your development?
* What are the key national priorities that interest you?
* What are the local priorities/service developments that need to be addressed in your area?
* Identify your team's priorities in the coming year, how does this effect you?
* If possible, discuss your self-assessment with a colleague.

The results of this exercise will form the basis of the information that you need in order to prepare your development plan.

2. Identify your goals

Build a profile of the knowledge and skills that you and your employer think you need in order to develop in your existing role and the skills that you may need to gain for the future. Set yourself clear objectives:

3. Plan to achieve

Prepare your development plan to meet the goals that you have set. Try to make the goals realistic, both in terms of the resources you have at your disposal and in the time frame you set for yourself.

Don't forget that - just as when planning any project - you should make allowances for unexpected changes to the plan. You can have as many goals as you wish, but try to make sure they are achievable. Between five and eight goals is probably realistic. You may want to divide your goals into short and long term.

Key questions to ask at this stage will be:

* What are my areas for development in the coming year?
* Are there areas for ongoing development?
* What will I do and by when?
* What are the expected outcomes?
* What resources will I need to implement my PDP?
* Who can I ask to support me in achieving my PDP?
* How will this impact on patient care?

4. Document your personal development plan

To plan your professional development you can use:
* Your own trust's scheme.
* A scheme or plan you devise.
* Another institution's forms.

Build a comprehensive, living portfolio to support your PDP with your attendance and achievement certificates.

A PDP is a live, constantly changing document that will change regularly as your goals and needs develop.

5. Resources to support you

There are many resources available to support you in achieving your PDP. These can include:

* On-the-job training consisting of supervised work learning a new skill, technique or application.
* Experience acquisition - shadowing someone more experienced or undertaking a specific piece of work.
* Professional development - which might consist of any activities that broaden knowledge, competence or potential outside the immediate goal.
* Day-to-day contacts with other members of the multidisciplinaty team as learning opportunities.
* More effective time use (eg, making handovers or meetings more effective, ie the use of technology, or use them for teaching/discussion of new ideas).
* Part or all of unit or team meetings for professional development and identifying common scheduled development periods for staff.
* Off-the-job training. This can include formal courses, either in-house or external.
* E-learning opportunities.

Learning is about more than just going on a course and getting a certificate. Day-to-day resources in your ordinary work, such as colleagues, clients, are all vital components in achieving your PDR

Some useful contacts:

Internal:

* Line manager.
* Those responsible for education and development in your organisation for example, the human resources department or clinical education team.
* Your local university, further education college or learning resource centre.

There is no one solution for everyone so choose what you feel will be most appropriate for you.

6. Record your learning

In addition to executing your plan, you should participate in a variety of activities and take advantage of every opportunity to learn and develop for yourself and for your organisation.

Keep a record of what you did and why it was of value to you as evidence of the development that you have undertaken and the learning that you have achieved.

Learning takes place in a variety of forms. Be sure to use the activities that you feel most comfortable with and are therefore most likely to learn from. One of the key benefits of ongoing development is in identifying what has been learnt and using that learning in your professional practice.

7. Assess your achievements

By its very nature, your development plan is personal to you. Assessing your achievements, therefore, will be a somewhat subjective process unless you make good use of benchmarks and any other available objective measures.

When making a record of your development, it is useful to reflect on what you have learned as a result of the activity. Ask yourself how you benefited and what you intend to do with new information, knowledge or skill. Make sure you make a record of your development.

Having achieved what you set out to, you then need to re-assess your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, challenges, likes and dislikes and produce the next phase of your development plan.

Remember that you do not necessarily need to generate new plans all of the time as your development plan can be modified constantly as some targets may be met before others. This is the nature of your personal and professional development throughout life.

8. The challenge of personal development planning

Personal development planning carries risks - you are exposing yourself to your perceived areas to improve as well as your strengths, and you are setting targets that you may or may not achieve for quite legitimate reasons. You will determine the benefits of achieving those goals because you are in the driving seat and are responsible for identifying the risks and opportunities particular to you.

If you choose to take the risk of not committing to personal development, you will find that demonstrating your competence and abilities, if you are called to do so, is a difficult task. Finding times to implement your PDP is always a challenge but here are some suggestions:

* Organise time outside the clinical area during the working day (eg, use staff wisely to free other staff to attend workshops or observe clinical practice in other areas).
* Refocus the purpose of existing time commitments (eg, use of handovers or meetings).
* Reschedule the working day (eg, adjustments on certain days could allow an overlap for teaching purposes).
* Increase the amount of available time (eg, through the use of development banking).

Summary

An important point to remember is that ongoing development is your responsibility. It cannot be done to you or for you. You are accountable for continuously developing your knowledge, expertise and competence and, if called on to do so, assuring your professional body that you have done this. Your PDP also represents your investment in yourself and in your professional employability.