Professional Development Plan (PDP)

Being the human beings we are, every staff is unique and has their own development goals. 

This year, I proposed to implement something new for our team of Engineers: Professional Development Plan.

The objective is to streamline and clarify their professional goals, and as their manager, how can I play my part to assist them to improve their productivity, efficiency to contribute to the organization, and at the same time simultaneously aligning for their individual aspirations, so we can customize the plan to what fits their personal context, and identify opportunities for diversifying their careers and internal transfers. 

Although we have similar system in place, I felt it was missing some important info and components, so we added them to have a more holistic and transparent outlook of their professional development. 

The PDP mainly revolves around three themes: Past (your experience, what you’ve done & achieved so far), Future (where are you headed? What are your goals?), and Present (what can we do now?). These are the main elements:

1. Career Aspirations / Focus Goals - What is your current trajectory? In the long run, what do you aspire to achieve (at least, at this point of time): a technical professional, manager, GM, VP? Or do you even feel like changing career path altogether? Let’s identify your goals, and figure out how we can achieve that together.

2. Coach - choose who you want to be your unofficial “coach”. The purpose of this is to choose someone in addition to the official coach (superior) from someone they feel comfortable to develop with. On the other hand, it’s also to open up opportunities for empowering senior engineers and other technical professionals in coaching and guiding others. 

3. Past experience - This is particularly important when taking over a new team or handling new recruits. We don’t necessarily know everyone’s backstories. This important section acts as a summary high-level CV, to acknowledge and recognize the staff’s past history in the context of their professional experiences, especially those we might not be aware of before we joined or they joined the team and/or the company. To identify their areas of specialization (and potentially assign them as SME’s within the team), as well as development gaps (i.e. what else they may need to experience before they take up leadership roles)

4. Competency goals this year - Our organization tracks development via a system called “Superior Managed Assessment” (SMA) which allows managers and staff to conduct any number of competency assessments per year. It’s flexible, but it’s also dangerous: without clear-cut plans in place, people tend to procrastinate and leave it off until the end of the year, or cram everything last minute just for promotion. But how many SMA is “enough”? Or too little? With this PDP, we outline which competency gaps you want to focus on - especially relating to your current work assignments, what competency level you need, and how many we should aim for the year as our development goals to stay on track with your career trajectory. 

5. Trainings & Supplementary courses to help achieve those goals.

6. Assistance you need from the manager - Are there major obstacles preventing you from development? Would you need a special assignment or attachment?   

7. Manager comments & discussion - once they filled in their PDP, we use this as the basis of career conversations. Where necessary, we can help fill in the gaps, and make suggestions to enhance them: e.g. alternative training suggestions, soft skills to develop. 

8. Manager signoff - the proverbial “handshake” to seal the commitment. This is also important to establish a sense of continuity and sustainability. In the event of staff or superior mobility and transfers, the signed off PDP can serve as a launchpad into future development plans in subsequent years. 

Any thoughts? Does your workplace have similar plans? Any suggestions to enhance the above?