Howto: Build (and follow) a personal growth plan for your team
As a leader, you want your team to be successful. One way to help them achieve their goals is to encourage them to develop personal growth plans. A personal growth plan is a document that outlines an individual’s goals and how they plan to achieve them. It can be a valuable tool for helping employees stay motivated and on track.
Here are the things I found useful in building the plan together.
Defining the goal
Start by talking to your team members about their goals. What do they want to achieve in their careers? It can be relatively long-term (as in 5 years from now), or better yet 18 months from now (which is something easier to commit to and easier to see than some long-distance dreams).
Defining what the goals requires
Lets say that the team-member defines their goal as “Team leader” or “Principal engineer”. Once you know what they want to achieve, you can start identifying (together) the skills and knowledge they need to get there.
It’s important to separate the “title” from the definition. A “Principal engineer” might mean different things to different people (moreover it might mean different things in different teams/companies), so defining what WE mean when we use that title, helps aligning the goal and setting it.
Another important aspect here in my opinion is to clear the noise of “me” in this step. What defines a team-leader? What capabilities, knowledge and skills does a team-lead needs? Not what I need, but rather what the “perfect team-lead” needs.
I already have some of the skills and knowledge? Great — so the definition helps us understand that.
SWOT analysis (what else?)
You probably heard that one before, but lets define a little bit what each means in the context of a personal growth plan.
Strengths — what skills and knowledge required for the goal (as defined in the previous step) I already possess and know (or feel) I’m good at?
Weaknesses — what skills or knowledge I might be lacking before I can achieve this goal?
Opportunities — what tools do I have to my disposal in my immediate surroundings — in the team (“someone in the team in an expert at X, so they might be able to teach me”), in the company (“the founders can help me understand Y as they are experienced”), groups I am part of (“I am a member of a women in tech group and I can learn Z or find a mentor about W there”), and so on…
Threats (OK, that’s a big word) — things my immediate surroundings can’t help me with, and so I’ll need “external” help —” no-one in the company knows K8s so I’ll need to take a course”, “there are no VPs in the company with enough experience in the field of X to mentor me”, etc…
The idea is to understand what is the realm of possibilities and what I need to achieve my goal.
Plan
That’s the hardest part — building concrete steps, that are measurable, attainable and do-able to learn new skills, strengthen weaknesses, re-enforce strengths, widening knowledge and making sure I progress towards the goal.
It’s important to set realistic goals and deadlines. This will help your team members stay motivated and on track.
Here are some examples:
- Take ownership on a feature from ideation to production
- Breaking a big feature to smaller parts
- Learn the balances and considerations a team-lead should take when hiring to the team
- Sit in on interviews to understand the process better
- Deepen my knowledge on AI and how it can be used
- …
Sticking to the plan
First, it’s important that the team-member understands, that this is not a sprint, it’s a marathon. It won’t take a day or a week, but it’s a process one must commit to for a long time.
Second, it’s important to be flexible. It’s OK that plans change, that something that wasn’t known before became clear and so the definition changes and new opportunities present themselves. It’s also OK to change your mind and understand that the goal doesn’t align with what you thought it might be and so you prefer to re-define the entire goal.
Adapt to the consequences is key here.
Third, progress is better than perfection. So it’s better to advance a bit and follow some of the plan, than giving up entirely.
Finally, frequent and scheduled 1on1s can help the individual be accountable to you and so they’ll feel they have to show some progress in the plan than nothing at all. But it doesn’t have to be you as their manager, it can be someone else they feel comfortable with.
Your job
After all said and done, it’s a personal growth plan, and so I believe that the individual should be the one asking to show you progress.
Have scheduled meetings to talk about the plan and the next parts, but it’s OK if the team-member asks to postpone or skip one of the meetings. It’s their plan, not yours, and it should happen by their pace. Set expectations so no one is surprised.
Provide support and encouragement. You are here to provide guidance, mentorship, share knowledge and accompany the team-member towards their goal. Find ways to tackle the “threats” with things at your disposal (such as finding them the best courses or meetups on subjects, finding groups for them, interesting people in your network, and so on).
But do note that you are not here to execute the plan for them, they need to progress on their own.
Be patient. It takes time to develop a plan and see results. That won’t happen overnight. You shouldn’t measure the team-member on how they commit to the plan (especially since numerous reasons can halt the progress, be it personal, harsh deadlines or otherwise).
Make it easy to get started. Together with the team-member, fill in the document (in multiple sessions) together. Do the lowest hanging fruits first, and then the bigger more time-consuming parts of the plan.
Celebrate small successes. It shows that you care and that you see progress. It encourages everyone to keep going and makes the set-backs feel even more special to conquer.
While there’s a goal to attain, the journey is part of it, and is what really gives meaning to the entire process.
To summarize, this is how our template for a personal growth plan will look like:
- Goal definition — what I want to achieve
- Discussion — what does that goal entail? what skill-set and knowledge should a person attaining this goal have?
- SWOT analysis
Strengths — what I already know or am good at
Weaknesses — what I lack in knowledge or expertise
Opportunities — what my immediate surroundings (including internal resources in the company) can help me with
Threats — what is missing from my immediate surroundings and so will require external assistance. - Detailed plan
What, When, With who, Definition of done, Status
