Benefits of Development Planning
1. Identifying Development Needs
- Creates regular & frequent opportunities to discuss personal development.
- Encourages team members to take responsibility for their own development.
- Provides specific and useful feedback about performance.
- Identifies team members strengths and areas of development.
- Establishes what needs to be done to create a learning environment.
- Involves team members in defining personal development goals.
- Challenges team members to make significant improvements.
2. Planning for Development
- Structures appropriate learning experiences for team members.
- Matches individual development programmes to company requirements.
- Takes actions to identify the way team members prefer to learn.
- Seeks to match learning activity to individuals preferred learning styles.
- Challenges team members to try out other roles/activities.
- Is able to identify opportunities where tasks may be used as learning experiences.
- Dedicates time to discuss development opportunities with team members.
- Creates opportunities for team members to learn new skills and experience new situations.
3. Implementing Development Plans
- Devotes time and energy into developing the competencies of his/her team members.
- Gives others the freedom to explore their own initiatives.
- Creates an environment conducive to learning.
- Encourages team members to reflect on and learn from everyday experiences.
- Gives praise for a job well done.
- Provides constructive feedback on a regular basis.
- Encourages others to try different approaches.
4. Personal Development
- Seeks frequent feedback from others and acts on it.
- Openly admits mistakes and learns from them.
- Has a clear personal development plan.
- Gives priority to personal development activities.
- Continually challenges self to ‘see things differently’.
- Listens to, considers and tries out the ideas of others.
- Asks others for help in achieving development goals.
- Acts as a role model to others in the area of self development.
Development Needs
Remember training and development is a process therefore treat your development needs as a general guide to your development. The real value in implementing your development needs is the learning you achieve.
Remember that your development needs are a result of the skills and/or competencies related to the job and that each job skill and/or competency usually has an associated proficiency level.
To increase your proficiency level consider the differences between the proficiency levels and what areas of knowledge and skills are needed to reach your required level for the job.
Things to consider when implementing your development:
- What specifically must be accomplished ie what objectives need to be reached
- Which of these objectives require learning new areas of knowledge and skills
- What order should the learning be organized as it is may be useful to learn certain areas of knowledge and skills before learning new areas
- What type of training activity is best suited for your development need i.e. enrolling on a programme, reading a book, watching a video, on line learning, talking with people who are experts
- Does the training activity match your preferred learning style ie doing, listening, reading as understanding your learning style helps you learn more effectively (associated topic Learning Styles)•Does your training activity take advantage of real life learning opportunities ie on-the-job training, use of projects
- What evidence will you be able to produce to show the observable results of your learning
- What will you be able to do as a result of the learning
- Completing a development plan is a good way to document your learning activities (see associated topic example development plan smart objectives)
Understanding Your Learning Style
By recognizing and understanding your own learning styles allows you to improve the speed and quality of your learning. Sometimes you might use a variety of learning styles. It is recommended to choose the best training activity for you to achieve the best learning experience as not always the information is presented in ways that best suit you.
Some training activities ie workshops, practical activities or through case studies may suit some people more than others. Sometimes, people feel they are not good at learning when it may be just that they don’t know their own learning styles.
General Descriptions based on Kolbs theories
There are four different styles in Kolbs cycle:
Activists
Activists involve themselves fully and without bias in new experiences. They enjoy the here and now and are happy to be dominated by immediate experiences. They are open-minded, not skeptical and this tends to make them enthusiastic about anything new. Their philosophy is: “I’ll try anything once”.
They tend to throw caution to the wind. Their days are filled with activity. They revel in short term crisis fire fighting. They tackle problems by brainstorming. As soon as the excitement from one activity has died down, they are busy looking for the next. They tend to thrive on the challenge of new experiences but are bored with implementation and longer term consolidation.
They are gregarious people constantly involving themselves with others, but in doing so, they hog the limelight. They are the life and soul of the party and seek to centre all activities around themselves.
Reflectors
Reflectors like to stand back to ponder experiences and observe them from many different perspectives. They collect data, both first hand and from others, and prefer to chew it over thoroughly before coming to any conclusions. The thorough collection and analysis of data about experiences and events is what counts, so they tend to be cautious, to leave no stone unturned. “Look before you leap” “Sleep on it”.
They are thoughtful people, who like to consider all possible angles and implications before making a move. They prefer to take a back seat in meeting and discussions. They enjoy observing other people in action. They listen to others and get the drift of the discussion before making their own points. They tend to adopt a low profile and have a slightly distant, tolerant, unruffled air about them. When they act, it is as part of a wide picture that includes the past as well as the present, and others’ observations as well as their own.
Theorists
Theorists adapt and integrate observations into complex but logically sound theories. They think problems through in a vertical, step by step, logical way. They assimilate disparate facts into coherent theories. They tend to be perfectionists who won’t rest easy until things are tidy and fit into their rational scheme. They like to analyze and synthesize. They are keen on basic assumptions, principles, theory models and systems thinking. Their philosophy prizes rationality and logic. “If it’s logical it’s good”. Questions they frequently ask are: “Does it make sense?” “How does this fit with that?” “What are the basic assumptions?”.
They tend to be detached, analytical and dedicated to rational objectivity rather than anything subjective or ambiguous. Their approach to problems is consistently logical. This is their ‘mental set’ and they rigidly reject anything that doesn’t fit with it. They prefer to maximize certainty and feel uncomfortable with subjective judgments, lateral thinking and anything flippant.
Pragmatists
Pragmatists are keen on trying out ideas, theories and techniques to see if they work in practice. They positively search out new ideas and take the first opportunity to experiment with applications. They are the sort of people who return from management courses brimming with new ideas that they want to try out in practice.
They like to get on with things and act quickly and confidently on ideas that attract them.
They don’t like ‘beating around the bush’ and tend to be impatient with ruminating and open ended discussions. They are essentially practical, down to earth people who like making practical decisions and solving problems. They respond to problems and opportunities ‘as a challenge’. Their philosophy is: ‘There is always a better way, and if it works, it’s good’.
