What should I include in my Plan?
So you know you need to plan, and how it will help you to
achieve your goals; but how do you go about deciding what to put in your plan?
If you are fortunate enough to have a supportive employer and regular
appraisals, then you have a good place to start. Here we look at some other
ways to help you define what your plan should include.
a) Thinking in terms of competence
The goals you have in mind will indicate the specific
knowledge and skills you need to acquire. At this point, it is more helpful to
think of these in terms of competences rather than of knowledge to be
gained. This way you will be clearer about what you actually need to do. Also,
expressing your development in terms of competence will help you to explain to
others what exactly you have achieved, and why it is important and useful.
There is nothing new or strange about personal
self-assessment - we do it every day. If we didn’t understand our
capabilities and limitations, we might all enter the London Marathon! We assess
ourselves every time we consider a job advert - Would I like the job? Could I
do it? Do I match the job specification? However, we are often less sure about
carrying out a regular assessment of our needs and capabilities in relation to
our everyday work activities.
Your institution believes that professional development
is a self-owned and self-managed activity: self-assessment of competence is a
logical extension of this concept.
Ideally, these processes are carried out with the support
of your employer. However, in these turbulent times for business and
employment, this may not always be possible or, even, sometimes advisable. Your
own development aims may at times vary from those of your employer, or you may
be working for yourself or enjoying a portfolio career. Whatever the
circumstances, there is now a requirement to assess more accurately and
confidently your own needs and accomplishments, both in reviewing your goals
and plans, and judging how well you are doing.
Find out more about Competences.
TIP: For the purposes of your own professional
development, it might be useful to be aware of the Engineering Council
(UK)’s summary of overall competence for engineers which states that
competence of an individual includes:
- The basic knowledge, understanding, experience and skills appropriate to
the level of registration
- A detailed understanding of the principles and a mastery of the
knowledge and analytical skills required for the specialist engineering
role
- The ability to perform the technical role fully and well
- The supervisory management and personal skills required to be effective
in both expected and unforeseen situations
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All that really matters is that you can clearly see
progress in your competences and that you build evidence of this progress over
time, in directions that support both your career and your personal
objectives.
b) Information to include
Employer schemes - many employers have specific
development schemes for their employees. If this applies in your case, then
they will almost certainly help you identify your development actions. You may
wish to set yourself additional goals, but the scheme will provide the starting
point for your plan.
Appraisals - any development actions identified on your
last appraisal must be included in your plan. Even if your development action
plan is for your personal use, you will need to take into account the
development that your manager has identified for you.
Accredited training schemes - these schemes, run by
employers, have been accredited by the relevant institution(s) to ensure they
meet all the requirements to support their employees in achieving professional
registration. If you are lucky enough to be included on one of these schemes,
you will have all the help you need to prepare your development action plan;
particularly in identifying your competences.
Competence frameworks - although your employer may not
have a formal scheme, they may have competence frameworks in place. These will
detail the skills and knowledge required for each role or function, and you
will be able to use these in assessing any development you may need for your
current, or a possible future, role. If your employer doesn’t have a
competence framework you may still find it helpful to plan your development in
terms of the Competences you will acquire. Find out more about
Competences.
Legal Requirements - very few areas of engineering in the
UK are governed by strict codes of conduct or requirements for specific amounts
or types of professional development. However, it will be wise for you to
include in your planning and reviewing, any changes in legislation or best
practice with respect to your specific area, and those for health, safety and
the environment.
There are, of course, many other possibilities that will
arise from your job, your network of colleagues and friends, private reading,
conferences and events, etc. Your institution, and more especially its various
committees, national and local events, and publications will also provide ideas
and guidance. Other engineering institutions, both in the UK and overseas,
together with those of non-engineering professions, can also provide valuable
guidance.
c) Standards
As well as using job descriptions, appraisals, competence
frameworks, etc as a means of identifying the Competences you may wish to
develop, you should identify any performance standards that apply to your work.
These may be laid down at international, national or company level, and include
quality, safety and environmental standards. Effectively, standards enable you
to assess whether you have done the job properly. Many published standards are
available for you to use. Find out more about Standards.
d) Gap analysis
Comparing your existing competence profile (in terms of
both areas and degrees of competence) against the profiles for your existing
post, or jobs you aspire to, is an important step when setting objectives and
developing your Development Action Plan. Only when you have established the
‘gap’ (the difference between where you are now and where you want to
be), will you be able to identify methods for bridging it. Mentors and line
managers can be of invaluable assistance in this type of exercise, as well as
an excellent source of ideas as to how to go about addressing your 'gaps'.
When you have reached the end of this stage you may find
you have created a daunting list: it is therefore a good idea to concentrate on
only a few areas at any one time. Choose only those competences immediately
relevant to your current job to start with. That way you will be able to
experience discernible or measurable progress and consolidate your
learning.
Set realistic and achievable targets for yourself and
have only, say, 3 or 4 targets to reach for any one period. Obviously, if you
meet your targets early you can always bring your review forward!
Knowing which learning style suits you best will enable
you to ensure that your learning is effective and help you in selecting the
most appropriate learning activities. However, you should also realise that you
may have a mix of different styles.
Find out more about Learning
Styles.
Whilst it is vital that you gain the technical knowledge
and skills required to perform well in your specific role, it is also important
to keep a balance between technical and personal development. Personal skills
that you need to strengthen may include management skills, communications,
problem solving abilities, health & safety, commercial knowledge or an
understanding of other specialist business functions.
Keeping a balance within your development will make you a
more ‘well-rounded’ professional and will help you to perform better
within your own area. It will also allow you to take advantage of opportunities
that may arise to work in other areas, or prepare you for future promotion.
Another way of maintaining balance is to ensure that you
undertake different types of learning. It is very easy to only think about
on-the-job learning, or self-managed learning, but gaining qualifications is
also valuable. Qualifications provide ready-made proof of achievement, and the
cross-fertilisation of ideas between students from different employers and
industries can be invaluable.
Initially, you will need to consider exactly what it is
you must tackle first. The first step is to make a list of the tasks facing you
- and it may be possible to break larger projects into stages: once you have
this list, you can consider them individually. At this point, you can consider
whether tasks are urgent or important.
Urgent: The task is time-bound, so has to be
completed by a certain date. However, the task may be of no importance. Some
urgent tasks will never be undertaken.
Important: The task needs to be done, but may not
be urgent - so does not need to be completed by a ‘rapidly approaching’
deadline.
Considering what you need to have achieved before you can
do this task is one way of deciding which tasks must come before others. In
this way you will be able to order the tasks appropriately, and so can list
them in the order in which you intend to tackle them.
Note: Although you will have an ordered list of
tasks, if opportunities arise for you to do a later task before an earlier one,
these should not be overlooked. You can always change your priorities if you
need to.
The amount of detail you put into your plan is up to you.
Some people prefer to set very defined and specific goals, whilst others have
quite broad headings and little detail. You may decide not to go into very much
detail for your long and medium term plans, but set specific goals for your
current short term plan. This will avoid you spending too much time specifying
goals which are a long way off, and therefore liable to change, whilst ensuring
that your immediate objectives are well defined. Of course, you can always add
detail to your objectives as you work with, and review, your plan.
Reviewing your plan is a vital part of the development
process. Your plan needs to be up-to-date and appropriate in order to be an
effective tool. It is therefore important that you regularly update it to
remove the goals that you have already achieved, add new targets for the next
period, and to ensure it reflects any changes in your circumstances.
The frequency of your reviews will depend on a number of
factors, some of which may be very personal. Nothing should be regarded as set
in stone, but should be seen as flexible, to fit in with your current
circumstances. You may like to consider the following when setting your
review(s):
- Are your objectives short, medium or long term? The frequency must clearly
depend on the time frame envisaged. It would be pointless to review a set of
end-month objectives only annually, while there can be more flexibility about
longer term ones. You may find it useful to carry out some sort of review every
month, to see whether you have met your short-term objectives and are on course
for the longer term ones, so that any corrective actions can be considered. A
year should be considered the maximum period for any in-depth review. Much will
depend on the rapidity with which your work and responsibilities are changing,
and the range of competences you are developing at any one time.
- It is convenient to plan for a review to coincide with formal (annual or
half-yearly) appraisals. This not only meets your employer’s planning
cycle, but allows you to be fully prepared to derive value from the exercise,
to take on board any suggestions for change, and to rapidly incorporate these
into your plans.
- Do carry out a review at any points of change, e.g. changes of
responsibility, location or employer. Not only do you need to account for the
changes themselves in the development plans, probably adding and subtracting
topics at the detailed level, but you must also take account of the broader
effects on your career aims and overall direction - not forgetting the
implications for your personal objectives.
- You may like to think of the regular review and updating of your CV as part
of this process. Any change of circumstances - or consideration of other job
opportunities - should trigger a review of your CV and, if nothing else, will
act as a quasi-review process.
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