+1 440 565 7123
+44 20 7259 2477Development Planning
Development planning plays a pivotal role in developing high potential talent and building more robust succession plans.
Without development planning, very little of the right development, at the right time, happens.
The development planning process empowers employees to take ownership of their own development. It provides a mechanism to consolidate and prioritize developmental feedback from various sources, including coaching and mentoring conversations, 360 degree feedback, assessment or development center feedback, talent review feedback, and performance reviews. It provides a framework to create an action plan that motivates employees to move forward on their development priorities and goals.
Development plans provide an essential foundation for employees to engage in meaningful career development conversations with their line manager, mentor, coach, talent management or human resources professional. Following these conversations, employees should integrate agreed actions, next steps and any other relevant information into their development plans, and then request written comments on their revised development plans. These comments should be appended to the development plan, creating a transparent process that promotes and encourages a commitment to agreed development actions and next steps by all parties.
Importantly, development planning plays a pivotal role in developing high potential talent. It provides a mechanism to ensure that high potentials are getting the right experiences, at the right time, to maximize their development and strengthen their viability for specific succession plans. Without development plans, high potential development tends to be more opportunity driven. To build robust succession plans, high potential development needs to be more strategically driven. Development plans play a powerful role in ensuring that every development opportunity provides the right experience to build bench strength for specific succession plans.
Development plans give high potentials and employees an important voice during talent review meetings, succession planning reviews, and other development and deployment discussions. These development plans may include:
- summary of strengths, development needs and weaknesses
- summary of possessed and unpossessed experiences
- short-term development priorities, goals and objectives
- long-term development goals and objectives
- career aspirations
- domestic and international mobility, geographic preferences
- resources or support needed to achieve development plan goals
- obstacles to achieving development plan goals
- strategy or plan to overcome any obstacles
- mentoring and coaching needs
- aspiration for specific positions, business divisions, teams or projects
- educational goals
- executive business school program
- leadership, learning or development programs
- professional certifications or licenses
- special skills training (e.g., languages, project management, programming languages)
- reading professional books, journals or other online or printed resources
- attending professional conferences, meetings, webinars, podcasts or other events
- contributing to professional field (e.g., publications, speaking engagements, or innovations)
- self-nomination for further development opportunities, for example, short-term assignments, task forces or projects, committees or panels, mentoring others, external non-executive director opportunities, or company sponsored community involvement or volunteerism
- prioritized actions and timeline to achieve development plan goals
We will work in partnership with your organization to design and deliver a development planning process that meets your specific talent development needs.
