When your team wants to grow and develop: 9 elements of a short-term development plan
In January, we focused on goals and habits. Many of these goals may include developing a skill, acquiring knowledge in a certain space, or growing your career in a certain direction.
Some organizations have guidance or a policy and process where managers and employees work together to formulate a short-term and/or long-term development plan. I find some managers are not sure how to help their teams create a plan especially if they are new to their role.
Development plans can be either short-term or long-term in nature (and, ideally, both). Short-term development plans typically help employees improve an area identified in a performance conversation or sharpen skills they need to be successful in their current role.
Long-term plans focus more on where the employee wants to take their career. Maybe they want to become a people manager. Maybe they want to become more of a deep expert, or maybe they want to transition into another area of the business. These plans may still include and build on short-term areas but also include ways they can start to develop the skills, knowledge, experience, and education needed for the next role and beyond.
Some employees may not know what they want to develop. This is why holding performance conversations, having goal check-ins, and providing feedback are so important. As a manager, based on what you have observed, ask yourself these questions:
· Is there a skillset or mindset they need to improve to get better in their current role?
· Is there an area they know but maybe need more experience in?
· Is there formal education that would help them in their current role?
· Is there something they know but maybe need to master before moving on to a new role?
Answering these questions will help you work with your team on their short-term development plan. Now, we are missing the other side of this conversation. Managers can, and should, ask their team members what they think. Consider asking these kinds of questions:
· In this situation, I observed this behavior, which had this result (Commonly known as the S-B-I [Situation – Behavior – Impact] method). What are your thoughts about this? Do you agree? What do you think you could do differently? Is there something from this you want to focus on and develop?
· In thinking about your current role, is there something you would like to do better?
· Is there a technology you would like to master?
· Is there a topic you want to know more about or master?
· Are there experiences you want to have or expect to have in your current role that you haven’t encountered yet but would like to?
Getting the employee to weigh in on their performance and your observations can lead to mini-coaching conversations and unearth areas of development. Asking them pointed questions about skills, technology, and experiences will help them think about other areas too.
After uncovering the “what”, you can start to create a plan. A short-term development plan can include the following:
1. Current Role – High-level responsibilities and scope
2. Current Goals – Goals they have in their current role; what are they being asked to work on and what are they being measured on
3. Strengths – What they are good at and like to do
4. Development Areas – Skills, knowledge, and experiences identified through the dialogue between manager and employee
5. Short-term Development Goals – Based on the above, name specific goals focused on development, i.e., Experiment with Generative AI for internal communications next quarter.
6. Actions – Tactics to meet the development goal, i.e., Find and take a course on Generative AI; Document key learnings from the course and share them with the team; Connect with Ed, who is a Gen AI expert, and ask for his top 5 tips using Gen AI; Schedule time to use a Gen AI tool for the next product announcement
7. Deadlines – Deadlines for each action will motivate focus and progress
8. Resources Needed – People, content, courses, memberships, tools, etc. that will be needed to take the actions documented
9. Progress – How you will track and when you will discuss progress; put meeting times or cadence on the plan
These plans should not be created and put into a folder on your desktop. They need to be actively managed and discussed in 1:1 check-ins.
Development is something everyone wants to do, but we don’t always feel like we have the time. Documenting a development plan, agreeing to it, and making it a part of your 1:1 meeting will ensure development gets prioritized. Focusing on this plan will also communicate how important development is to you and the organization.
Development plans are a win-win; they should not be viewed as extra work but as part of making work challenging and more enjoyable, and inspiring feelings of progress, career growth, and continued relevance and employability.
Next time, we will focus on the long-term plan and career development.