Planning

Once you have a good idea of what your needs are and what you might like to achieve it is time to prioritise and schedule your next steps towards achieving these.

• Which things are most urgent for your development, and which are most important? (Consider using the Urgent versus Important model). Try to focus on the things that can make the biggest impact.
• How can you best schedule time for development activities in your upcoming workplan? For example, a particularly demanding project may require all of your attention for the next 3 months but it may be more realistic to schedule development activities for the following month.
• Are there some activities which you would like to undertake that have fixed timings, for example training programmes, courses or events you would like to attend?
• Could any of your colleagues, friends or family be invited to participate in any of the activities you are planning? Learning can often be more effective if it is an experience shared with people you can discuss it with.

There can often be a temptation to set aside planned development activities in the face of the demands of your role, but wherever possible you should try to stick to your plan, and reschedule rather than just postpone things that have to be changed.  Try to be realistic when scheduling your development to avoid the need for this.

Remember, there is a wealth of high quality resources that can help support personal development available to all CMI members in ManagementDirect.