Creating A Professional Development Plan (+ FREE 6 Step TEMPLATE)

Control Your Career and Create Success with this 6 Step, No Cost Guide to build your professional development plan (with a template)| Good at Work Club

You deserve a professional development plan. Unfortunately, you might be waiting for someone in human resources or your boss to create this development plan for you. That is a mistake! It's your career, and it should be in your hands, not the hands of others who may not have the same vision for your career goals. It's one thing to know how to do something well, but it's another thing entirely to understand how you want to grow and develop your skills and career as an individual over time. If you've been feeling lost or stuck in your career lately, then I'm here for you! This 6-step professional development plan will help you get started on the right path towards success.

What is a professional development plan?

It's a plan for professional development. It should be created by the employee and updated periodically. It includes goals related to your personal career path that you want to achieve--things like learning new skills or taking on more challenging projects at work. You can also include volunteering in an area of interest outside of work, getting coaching from a mentor, going back to school part-time, or participating in continuing education courses offered through your employer.

A professional development plan has different sections:

• Your current job role

• Future jobs (what you may be doing after five years)  

• Skills needed for each future position (skills required within one year) 

• Actions steps taken towards

Before we dive into the following steps, make sure you take a moment to update your current resume. Updates should include job responsibilities you have now, previous job skills, identify your existing skill strengths. Be open to taking assessments to help you identify the skills you need to develop. Now, let’s dig into the steps of how to create a professional development plan for yourself.

Identify your career goals.

One of my favorite quotes is, "If you aim at nothing, you will hit it every time.” Zig Ziglar. You may not feel aware of your professional goals, and if you're not careful, you could find yourself looking back at a decade of a career with no purpose or direction. Countless people have ended up in management that never intended to be a manager. If that's your goal, then awesome, but you don't have to have direct reports to have career growth. So how do we figure out what we want?

It is time to think about what you want for your life. Including relationships, family, money, and travel. What do you like doing that can make money? What does the world need right now? What do friends, colleagues, or peers come to you the most? What is the type of work that makes you happy? What should be your big "5-10 year plan" to make money for the life you want and fill your happiness cup up?

Above are just a few questions you can ask yourself to help find your long-term goals. Then, we start looking so far out to assess what professional growth will map knowledge, skills, and professional growth in our development plan. 

Determine what you need to do to achieve these goals. 

Now that you know where you are aiming, it's time to review where you are and what you need. First, think about what you know now. What have you done in the past that will help? So many professionals have the knowledge and skills from other areas that may not seem to relate until they look at it holistically. Such as a Customer Success professional may lean heavily on retail or fast food cashier skills they taught early in their career. Direct experience isn’t always required think of the larger skills and how they are transferable. 

Then think about what you want to do and what skills are necessary—looking up job descriptions for your professional goals or titles on Glassdoor, Linkedin, Salary.com, and Payscale. All these online resources have job descriptions, list responsibilities, education requirements, and needed skills. You can also look at skills required for an industry that aligns with your desired outcome, researching needs within an organization or company of interest, researching relevant certifications available online (e.g., Lynda), etc.

Building up your skillset through formal education opportunities and informal (volunteer positions) learning opportunities, such as MOOCs from Coursera or EdX; reading books related to your field of study. You can do this by taking on more responsibility in your job, asking for targeted projects, or switching to a new industry.

Create a timeline.

Setting career goals requires establishing short, mid, and long-term plans to achieve those goals. Start with the long-term plans, next break down that ten-year vision into where you want to be in five years to get you closer to that goal.

Now let's look at your mid-term goals of 1 year. What does being closer to that long-term goal look like this time next year? Then, can you break it down further into the next six months? Now, what are three things you can focus on this month?

Beyond looking at skills within your industry or in future positions like we did above, you can also use a strategy of looking for growth edges. For example, transitioning to managing people, taking the lead or spearheading a project, asking for more product/profit&loss responsibility, deepening your technology ownership, or gaining more experience within the technology and tools you are currently using.

Make a list of resources available to you.

Brainstorm and make a list of the resources you have available to help you learn, grow, or develop. What books, courses, professional groups, mentors, or people in your network can you tap? Are there any cross-functional teams or projects you can collaborate or join? 

Ask your direct manager if there are any learning and development resources or budget. If they don't know then ask your HR department. If there isn't any budget, then you can get crafty. Volunteering for a steering community or board committee can be greater exposure and skill builders as well. Even joining a Linkedin group relevant to your position or industry can become a valuable source of inspiration and experience.

Ask your manager if you can help present or lead a meeting, spearhead a project, cross-train for another position, have time to attend a professional conference or seminar. Create training or learning programs for others on your team. There are several add-on activities within your job that you could potentially do to increase your professional development while also helping your boss and team - that's a win-win!

Put together an action plan for the next six months and beyond.

To set an achievable goal for yourself, start by setting deadlines for various milestones based on when you would like to achieve them. Then break each one down into smaller steps, so there is no ambiguity around what needs to happen next. The more detailed, minor, daily actions you can create, the more likely it will be easier to commit.

Our favorite format here at Good at Work Club is to prioritize three-yearly professional development goals. Now break those goals down into three goals each month, some may require multiple months, but you can break them into sections. Once you have done that, each week will have three goals that you focus on during your scheduled development time. This 3x3x3 method makes things easier to manage and not feel overwhelming while keeping steady progress and improvement towards successful professional development.

What are Professional Development Goals Examples?

Here are a few examples of what your goals will look like:

GOAL: Expand my professional network by joining two networking groups in six months.

Actions: Attend one meeting each month and set up at least three introductions for me during that time frame.

Milestones: Join two professional networking groups within the next four weeks (already accomplished).

Review Networking Goals with Your Boss on March 31st.

GOAL: Spearhead a Change Management working group to work to help increase change buy-in among the team.

Actions: Set weekly one-hour meetings to create a roadmap, complete projects, and report to the team and leadership.

Milestones: Three coworkers have joined the council. (completed February)

Create a survey for the team to suggest what they want to see change by June 1st.

Share your plan with someone who will be supportive and hold you accountable — a mentor, coach, or your boss.

Finally, take time to review your professional development plan with the people you are most accountable to--your manager, supervisor, mentors, or professional development coach. 

Once your completed plan has smart goals, a timeline, and a straightforward way to track your progress, it’s time to enact it! Getting management buy-in might seem scary, but it's easier than you think. You have done all of the hard work. We challenge you to the task of sharing your goals and plan with management in your next one-on-one meeting. Try bringing it up by saying, "I have been focusing on my development as a professional. I'd love to show you what I have come up with and see if you have any observations or feedback."

Now about that Professional Development Plan Template, we promised you.

This professional development plan workbook includes a professional development plan template for all positions and industries in six simple steps to help you create your own personal, professional development plan.

We have included this free Professional Development Plan Template here for your use. We can't wait to watch your career flourish once you tap into your innate power of owning your career. So make a copy, and here is an example of what a goal will look like:

It’s time to get serious about your professional development. You don’t have time for excuses, and you can start with this six-step plan that we created just for you! All it takes is a little bit of self-awareness, some goal setting, and the willingness to invest in yourself. Tag us on social media when you share your PDP on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter using our free template, so we know how many people are going after their goals. We want to know how your six-month plan is going so we can help if needed!