Professional development plans¶

A plan changes what happens.

At different times you may be asked to make a professional development plan, or choose to make one yourself. Many people who have done this previously at work will face the task with reluctance - because the plan has seemed unreal and arbitrary, and because they haven’t seen meaningful results from it.

This is really a shame, because a well-made plan is a wonderfully effective tool for success.

Dimensions of a plan¶

A good plan contains an aspiration, objectives and commitments. The aspiration is what you are reaching for; the objectives are what you will achieve along the way; the commitments are to the actions you will actually take.

They answer three different questions:

What do you want?
What shall you achieve?
What will you do?

They are separate, independent dimensions - they often get mixed up and blurred, but they are each a different kind of thing. Each one is necessary in a plan.

aspiration	objectives	commitments
where you want to go	what you will make happen	what you commit to doing
meaning, direction, value, aim	progress, measurement, outcomes	effort, accountability, action

Aspiration¶

The aspiration or ambition is what you are aiming towards. It’s the answer to the question: “What do you want?”

You are here, and you desire to be there; your aspiration lies in a certain direction. It is the value that gives your whole plan meaning; it’s something you believe in because it’s worth reaching for.

Ambitions don’t need to be particularly realistic to have value. They should have at least a little wildness in them, because a safe and comfortable ambition isn’t going to inspire you.

A plan without aspiration is without meaning, value or direction - it’s empty.

Examples¶

I want to start and develop a successful software business.

I want to achieve the highest results in my studies.

I want to support my family through my work.

Not succeeding in your aspirations¶

We don’t always reach what we aim for - especially when we aim for ambitious things (it would be easy to achieve all your ambitions by aiming only for unambitious things). If the direction is a good one, you’ll find valuable things along the way, even if you don’t reach the destination.

In a way, it doesn’t matter too much. If you strive towards an ambitious goal, you’re likely to get somewhere worthwhile, even if it were not precisely what you had expected or hoped for.

Objectives¶

The objectives, naturally, are objective measures. They are the answer to the question: “What shall you achieve?”

Objectives are the milestones you reach on the journey towards your ambition, the things you make happen and the outcomes you bring about through your efforts. You - and others - will be able to see that you are making progress as you achieve the outcomes you set out.

Objectives need to be realistic, even if they are ambitious. It makes no sense to set yourself an objective you can’t meet.

A meaningful objective usually includes a time component whether implicit or explicit: how long it will take to achieve it.

A plan without measurable objectives is a fantasy, detached from reality or rigour.

Examples¶

By the end of the year, I aim to be invoicing at least USD 1000 per month.

I aim to submit two pull requests fixing bugs in <open source project> each month.

I aim to complete all my coursework one week before the final deadline.

I aim to achieve the <such-and-such> certification before June.

Not attaining your objectives¶

You should attain most of your objectives - they need to be fairly reasonable. If you can easily achieve them all, that’s a bit suspicious - they were probably a bit unambitious. If you never achieve any, either they were completely unrealistic, or perhaps something else is going wrong.

Commitments¶

Commitments in a plan are the things you promise to do. They are the answer to the question: “What will you do?”

In a plan, you commit to particular actions. Every action is an effort towards your ambition, that helps bring about an objective.

You can only commit to something you can achieve through an act of will, something you can choose to do. You can’t choose to do well in an examination, but you can choose to spend each evening studying instead of going out with your friends.

Real commitments tend to include time commitments - when you are going to do what you promised.

Examples¶

I will set aside 1 hour a day for four weeks to study for the exam (until 31st May).

I will join the undergraduate Python study group.

1st-2nd June: I will attend the weekend seminar.

I will attend the local developers’ meetup (Wednesday evenings).

I will apply to join the open-source code volunteers programme.

I will work through all exercises in the <such-and-such> book.

Not keeping your commitments¶

Not completing the activities you said you would is a failure to respect your commitments. It is literally failing to do your work. (Occasionally, you can be forgiven - for example if you realise that in good faith, you promised more than you could give - but that should be a rare occurrence.)

Writing out your plan¶

A plan will not be successful unless it is written down. That puts it outside you - if it stays inside your head, you can tell yourself anything about it, and you will successfully fool yourself.

Date
Aspiration	Describe where you are and where you want to go. You can be bold and ambitious, but be honest and true about what you want.
Where I am now
Where I want to be
Objectives	Describe the specific outcomes you aim to bring about. Include a time-frame where possible. Be realistic, even if you are ambitious. The outcomes must be objectively measurable.
I aim to	… …
Commitments	Say what you will do, and when you will do it.
I will	… …

The time element¶

Time is crucial in a plan. Your plan needs to be dated, and some of its components need to have time attached to them.

Review, assessment, modification¶

Your plan also needs to be reviewed, not just at the conclusion of a period, but regularly.

There is real value in noticing what has worked and what hasn’t. If you aimed to achieve something within a certain period and didn’t, or committed to do something and failed to, the plan will show that to you, but you need to dig in to why, and you do something differently based on what you have understood. Be tough on yourself. A good plan can be as uncomfortable as having a mentor who challenges you and holds you to account, and you need that.

As you make progress, new objectives and commitments to particular actions will suggest themselves. There will be things that you cannot even properly see, never mind usefully include in a plan, until you have come around a particular bend in your journey.

Why this is the best way¶

There are lots of different ways of creating professional development plans, but this is the best one.

For example you have no doubt encountered the idea of SMART planning. In fact, all the key elements of the original SMART criteria are included in this method. The difference is that here, the elements are not merely “a list of important things to include” - they are identified as distinct, independent dimensions. There is a meaning to the structure that is missing in SMART.

SMART is a catchy acronym, but it’s merely a list. Worse, no-one can quite agree on what the items in the list are, except that somehow they have to spell out SMART. Because it’s an arbitrary list, people feel the urge to add additional ones, so we end up with “improved” schemes, for SMARTER, SMARTS, SMARRT and various other increasingly unmemorable formats. That’s not to mention all the competing notions, like CLEAR, ABC, etc.

This scheme is not arbitrary. Also, because it clearly describes the necessary dimensions of a plan as independent of each other, it makes it possible to see for example which particular elements time applies to, and how (whereas SMART simply implies that a plan must be time-related, which is both vague and misleading).