Really individual Individual Development Plan
Hi! I’m Damian. I’ve been an Engineering Manager for a year. I’ve made quite a few Individual Development plans for my reports. I want to share my approach. Sit down, tune in and enjoy!
What and why?
What is an Individual Development Plan (IDP)? It is a long term plan for career progression. It is a set of goals which helps guide you to achieve your ultimate career dreams. It helps to discover your dreams and sets interim steps which will get you there.
Why do you need one? If you know exactly where you are heading and how to get there — you don’t. Let me ask you a question though. Did you know 5 years ago where you would be now? Has anything changed since then? Have you ever felt that you are not sure what to do with your career?
Let’s start!
My method is based on a great article. I’ll give you some tips on how to actually do it. I will also provide a template of what the end result could look like.
I usually set 3 one hour meetings which are 1-2 weeks apart. During those, I’ll talk about the past, the future and the present.
We’ll look at this from the manager’s point of view.
Meet your report — The past
First, start with actually knowing your report. A great start:
Tell me about your life, starting from nursery.
Encourage others to share. Talk about your life first. Try to put some personal information in there as well. The more you open yourself, the more likely they will open up to you. Make it safe for them.
Listen actively. Ask questions if you don’t understand something. Make notes if you want to come back to something. Focus on milestones in someone’s life.
A few things to pay attention to:
- What are their values?
- What motivates the person?
- How does the person make decisions?
- What is important for that person?
- What triggered changes in their life?
A few helpful questions:
- You told me that you quit your studies. How did this happen?
- What were you thinking when you left your first job?
- How would your best friend describe you?
- What was good about that? What did you love about it?
- Why do you learn?
This shouldn’t be only about their career. Sometimes there are interesting facts that are not job-related. Maybe someone is great at drawing (creative) or chess (logical thinking/reasoning). Look for things that are important to them!
Let’s dream — The future
The second meeting should be about their future. Don’t focus on their current job, career or present circumstances. Encourage to dream big. Everyone thinks they want something, but your job is to find what they actually want. This is one of the hardest and most important tasks as a manager.
How to start? Some people will tell you millions of ideas immediately after you ask them what they want to do in the future. Others will simply say I don’t know. We all ask ourselves what we want to do with our lives. The trick is to rephrase the question so they can think of a new answer.
Try starting with:
When you retire, what do you want to be proud of?
Going back from the end of life may lead you to unexpected results. Ask them to be specific about their ambitions. Look for other meanings and true reasons. Go deep and encourage them to dream big.
Try to find the real reason for desires. For example, creating their own company may just mean someone wants to hire smart people to work with.
A few helpful questions
- Tell me about your perfect day 20 years from now.
- How would you manage your company?
- If you didn’t have to worry about money, what would you do?
- Who do you look up to? Why?
- If you could do any job for a day, what would it be?
- What makes you really happy about this idea?
The plan — The present
Before the last conversation, you should prepare a document. The template which I’m using is as follows:
I am most motivated by…
- [Completed by the manager and discussed]
I most value…
- [Completed by the manager/report and discussed]
In the next year or two, I want to…
- [Completed by the manager and discussed]
Strengths
- [Completed by the manager and discussed]
My Accomplishments
- [Completed by the report and discussed]
Development Focus & Actions
- [Completed by the manager and report and discussed]
Let’s unwrap these, one by one.
The first section is about motivation. Based on the conversation you had in the past weeks you should be able to complete it. A great guide for this section is to look for changes in life from the past. What actually triggered those changes?
Next focus on the 2 most important values. You can ask your report to just choose up to 2 (not more) values from the following list. You can attempt to fill the values by yourself as well. Up to you.
Following values, we have aspirations. These are the high-level goals which you have identified together.
Strengths could be derived from your observations on a daily basis and from general performance. Having strengths visible will help you leverage these to achieve excellence.
Accomplishments should be discussed to identify their main achievement in the last year. You can guide them by adding
Of the things I did in the past year, I am most proud of…
Finally, Development Focus & Actions. This is the main part of the IDP. Let’s give this its own chapter!
Creating goals around Focus & Actions
I have written a separate article about how to set achievable goals. Please read it for more guidance. Here I’ll just put the most relevant parts to IDP.
Create at least 2 paths. It’s better when your people can change the area of their focus. Their career focus shifts from time to time. Having multiple things to choose from will help overall progress.
Create a lot of interim goals. Make these tangible and actionable. Approach the main goal from multiple angles. It doesn’t matter if not every interim goal is achieved. Still, try to generate tones! Brainstorm with your report to think of as many things as possible.
Make IDP visually appealing. Make it cool. Add cryptonyms/colors/names to different paths. The cooler it is the more likely it will stick.
An example of graphics? Look left. Here you go:
Create a clear description of the goal. What will the end result look like? It should be similar to the job description: empowering, but also easily measurable.
Takeaways
Visible, actionable and cool individual development plan encourages me to do more every day. It has been successful for people I work with too. Having clear goals and a list of ideas makes it easy to focus on what we actually need to do to move forward in our career.
For your convinence, I have created a template for the Individual Development Plan. You can find it here. Make sure you adjust it for your needs or even create something on your own.
Remember that the more compelling it is the more likely we will look at it and feel empowered to boost our career.
