Personal Development Plan - Essay Example

Professional Development Plan Table of Contents Table of Contents 1 Introduction 2 Section 1: Professional Development Plan 2 SMART Action Plan         3 Section 2: Progress Review 4 Section 3: Long-term Plan of Action 8 Maintaining Work Life Balance 8 References 10 Appendices 11 Introduction The report discusses about the author’s professional development plan, the goals that need to be achieved by the author and the plan that has been developed is depicted in the report. The action plan has also been discussed on how the author will achieve the goals in a stipulated period of time. At the end of the report the long term goals of the author has been stated for achieving in future. Section 1: Professional Development Plan The three development goals that has been planned for professional development is firstly, becoming a responsible person, the second goal is to develop time management skills, and lastly to gain expertise in using the spreadsheet tool, MS Excel. To work upon becoming a responsible person is important for leading tasks both in academics and at work place. By becoming responsible, one develops leadership qualities and is capable of making decisions according to requirements. Time management skills allow the individual to conduct multi tasking and reap high benefits from conducting tasks in minimum time (Stephenson and Weil, 1992). Time management skill help towards learning about prioritizing tasks according to their level of importance and accordingly ensures that all tasks are completed within the stipulated time frame (Adair & Allen, 1999). By learning the tool of MS Excel will allow all project management and decision making tasks related to product demands and supply will be easier. The graphs depicted on MS Excel will allow the overall scenario to be analysed in a consistent manner. The stated goals will be achieved by developing a proper plan and accordingly by setting objectives for achieving the goal. Timeline needs to be designed and by maintaining log entries the path towards achieving the goals can be accomplished (Megginson and Whitaker, 2003). The resources that may be required for achieving the goals are reading books about leadership and learning how to become responsible, attaining seminars and workshops for time management skills and lastly learning the MS Excel tool through a tutor or any computer institute. The progress of the skill development can be measured through practical experiences such as managing time in between different projects, working out on MS Excel and analysing the decision making capability, and lastly ensuring that all work is undertaken with full responsibility. The time scale and action plan will depict the success achieved in developing the goal. During the final years of the degree program, the results would be evident about the success of professional development goals. SMART Action Plan         Objective: Development of information technology skills specifically gaining command in the MS Excel spreadsheet tool so as to allow faster decision making at work. Specific: tutorials will be taken so that the MS Excel tool can be learnt comprehensively and command can be gained in working on MS Excel for academic related work as well as practice it for organisational decision making. Measurable: To imply the MS Excel tool on the cases and problems and evaluate whether the right answers and right method was deployed in working on the tool. To analyse whether all excel functions were easily understood during the problem solving exercise. Action Oriented: By working upon MS Excel tutorials, both at the basic and advanced level will enhance the learning process of the tool. Realistic: Good decision making skills via any business tool is important for attaining success in the organisation and Excel is a very good tool regarding decisions for firms as the graphs and charts depicts the trend of the firm. Timely: By working on the Excel tutorial and taking classes for 4 months will allow complete command on the tool. Section 2: Progress Review The first goal is accepting responsibility and this is done through willingness to accept all challenging tasks and remaining accountable for them at the end. Accepting responsibility reflects upon one of the leadership skills in the person (Northouse, 2007). People that are confident and believe in themselves will always strive towards accepting responsibility for all challenging tasks. Accepting responsibility is one of my strengths. My quest for learning new knowledge and skills through tasks drives me towards accepting responsibilities of all natures and types. I always strive towards taking charge of things both in personal and academic life. In university, I am eagerly willing to be the project leader of the projects assigned to us for every course and ensure that all team members coordinate with each other to get the work done on time. For conducting events and seminars in university, I always opted for taking up the responsibility of arranging all events in the best possible manner. Some tasks were challenging and required careful commencements of plan delivery, but with constant guidance and support from family and friends, I always managed to deliver work with full responsibility. Professors in university started counting on me and considered me as one having good leadership and responsible qualities (Price, 2004). In academic life, there are multiple projects and assignments assigned every semester and to complete all of them timely require good time management skills. Developing time management skills is a very crucial skill for an individual to be possessed in both the personal and professional life. Good time management skills allow the work to be done in a systematic manner. At the end of the semester, multiple project submissions allowed me to work upon my time management skills effectively. For developing good time management skills, it is vital to be target oriented and also have high motivation to manage all tasks in a timely manner. Without the element of being target oriented, it is difficult to develop good time management skills. The events and seminars that were to be planned in the middle of the semester were quite a time consuming task and it required special attention and focus. This was a challenging experience as the events were to be arranged on time along with managing other related tasks. With careful planning and prioritization of tasks the events were arranged timely and all the project submissions were also completed on time. A timetable was prepared in which all the tasks were listed for the month and completion time and date were allotted for each task. Scheduling plans for tasks made the completion of tasks easier and also progress and status of each task reflected upon the tasks that were incomplete. Making such entries allowed me to remain up to date with all happenings (Cottrell, 2003). . Attaining excellent skills in MS excel tool was related to skill development that could boost the professional development. Striving for excellence in my job related activities helped me to a great extent in my professional career. I gained confidence and learnt new ways to accomplish goal with less resources and increased quality. Proficiency in MS Office tools was a core job requirement and leaning these software tools helped me enjoy superior positions as compared to my colleagues. My presentation skills were also enhanced and I started thinking with a new perspective about how to do my job and enjoy autonomy. Learning MS Excel was one point while keeping abreast of the upcoming versions and the techniques to solve job related queries was a more challenging task. Many features of MS Excel were unknown to me. I learnt them with the help of Microsoft Office. At times, the features skipped from my mind and I had to go through the help manual again to see if there is any built in functionality that could help me do this task. Initially, most of the time of assignment was spent in scanning and analysing the Excel features. Gradually, the command was developed. By looking at the example and pondering over it for a while, I could guess the Excel feature that could be applied there. It turned to be correct few times while inappropriate some other times. It also happened at times, that I applied a formula which produced correct results first time and totally ran out of order when replicated. It was an undesired situation when the deadline was approaching fast and I had to troubleshoot the sheet. In previous versions, it was even more difficult when many sheets were linked and each one was to be checked manually for possible errors and corrections. The supervisors were waiting for the report that needed to be presented to higher management and certain decisions were to be made based on that report. It was a critical time when I was overwhelmed with stress and found no way out of the situation. I closed all the sheets and reopened the main one. The error I found was that I had inserted a row that could not copy the formulas from above rows. It was disturbing the summary fields and the entire report was misrepresented. I looked for an option that could help me copy formulas from the above row but it needed VB code which was beyond my understanding at that level. I manually copied the formulas and submitted the report. However, it gave me altogether a new vision to learn and apply VB Code in my Excel functionality. There were many functions whose part was assigned to me before I developed expertise in my field. Learning new tools helped my managers assign me complete tasks which has substantial role in decision making. The sense of job identity motivated me further and I developed passion for growth in my field. I started guiding my juniors and co-workers in their tasks and it helped me identify my coaching and leadership skills. Professional development was a perpetual process and every day brought in new challenges and achievements. Whatever success I attained in my professional life was based on the goal orientation. It developed the trait of achievement orientation and eliminated procrastination. The process of developing SMART goals was a real achievement as it paved ways for other short term and long term achievements. The focused approach was a trigger to development which helped define the clear vision of life. The achievement of goals was reflected in my measurable performance. I got punctual in my office attendance and started meeting deadlines. It created stress initially but the recognition of being in time was so enjoyable that I preferred transforming this stress into an opportunity. I used to give tight deadlines to my self whose successful accomplishment was an encouragement. Section 3: Long-term Plan of Action There were two long goals associated with this plan. The first and the most important one was; maintaining work life balance and the other one was excelling in the field of choice. These two goals were interrelated with each other yet increased concentration on one another (Moon, 2004). The professional growth as referred by excellence in the field of choice is related to enjoying the adopted profession. Below is the description of one of these goals. Maintaining Work Life Balance It is an important goal which often emerges as a challenge in the lives of the one who tend to excel in their professional lives (Watts, 1992). People tend to allocate more resources to the profession which in turn hurts personal goals. Below is the SMART action plan of this goal. Specific: The goal was specific as it clearly mentioned the areas of personal and professional growth. By targeting balance, it simply banned the extra activities from both the circles. Measurable: This goal could be measured in terms of time allocation to the both personal and professional circles. Out of 24 hours, eight hours should be dedicated to work, eight hours to personal life and rest of the eight hours should be consumed in sleeping and refreshing the energies. Attainable: Work life balance could be made attainable when both personal and professional goals are realistically developed. Realistic: It was a realistic goal as both personal and professional lives belong to the same person. Both affect each other and excessive consideration at one side may lead to resource pull from the other side. Timely: The goal of maintaining work life balance was time bound in the sense that it did not prolong adherence to personal life after reaching at certain position in professional life. The plan and implementation was readily carried out and the compartments of time were allocated to both the spheres instantly. Conclusion The conclusion of the report is SMART goals help individuals perform better in their lives. Target orientation is the key to development which helps individual beat procrastination and adopts visionary approach to achieve something in life. References Adair, J. & Allen, M. (1999). Time Management and Personal Development. London: Thorogood. Cottrell, S. (2003). Skills for Success: The Personal Development Planning Handbook. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Megginson, D. and Whitaker, V. (2003). Continuing Professional Development, London: Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. Moon, J. A. (2004) A Handbook of Reflective and Experiential Learning, London: Routledge Falmer. Northouse, P. G. (2007). Leadership: Theory and Practice. California: Sage. Price, A. (2004). Human Resource Management in a Business Context. 2nd edition. London: Thomson. Stephenson J and Weil S (1992). Quality in Learning: a capability approach in higher education London: Kogan Page. Watts, A G (1992). Individual Action Planning: Issues and Strategies. British Journal of Education and Work, pp.47-63. Appendices Read More