Personal and Professional Development Plan

Introduction

This study of Personal and Professional Development Plan will be demonstrated to identify, focus and evaluate skills needed for professional growth with personal capabilities from that course context.  My chosen area or sector is financial sector in which I want develop my employability skill. So, I need to have good academic background, good academic knowledge, good academic score or grades. Moreover, I need to develop my personal skills as well as interpersonal skill where my personal capabilities will be utilized. Finally, I need to develop my professional skill which is highly related to employability skill.

So, this assignment will reflect on the skills, qualities, capabilities and competencies those are required under the development activities of Personal and Professional Development (PPD) planning. In that case, the demonstration of PPD Plan of myself with detailed actions would be reflected in terms of academic growth, personal growth, and career development growth. So, for that I must have some aim and objectives for this development activities which is relevant to career development goals. It will focus on the strengths and weaknesses points of myself regarding the whole PPD planning, and identify the need of improvement. Finally, it will focus on the employability skills that I have achieved from the development activities plan over the duration of the course and it will be evaluated those skills will enabling me to be successful in this course practices and  for next workplaces (Barton, 2012).

So, it will be a collaborative tasks to work in a team for making successful the PPD planning and course of actions to be performed.

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Aims and objectives of Personal and Professional Development Plan

Aim:

The aims of this PPD planning is to develop the professional growth with personal capabilities.

The justification of this aim is that it is very much essential for an individual to have the core ideas, knowledge, skills and capabilities before entering to job sector because all these things add value for career development, reduce so many personal and professional obstacles at preliminary stages.

Objectives:

1.0 To get a good score from that course as well as foundation degree

2.0 To develop interpersonal skills like

• Communication skill verbally and non-verbally
• Listening Skills
• Emotional intelligence skill
• Negotiation, persuasion and influencing skill
• Time management skill
• Team building and team working skill
• Problem solving and decision-making skill
• Conflict resolution and mediation skill (Barton, 2012)

3.0 To develop professional skills like

• Leadership Skill
• Motivational Skill
• Collaboration and Teamwork Skill
• Mentoring Skill
• Project Management Skill
• Negotiation and Conflict Management
• Financial analysis skill
• Data Analysis Skill
• Research and analytical skill
• Problem solving and decision-making skill (Barton, 2012)

Literature Review on Personal and Professional Development Plan

Definition of PPD

According to (Blandford and Knowles, 2009), Personal Professional development is the aspect of developing personal skills and qualities, analytical skills, technical skill, technical skills and some other professional skills that have the contribution on improving the performances of an individual and increasing the capabilities of an individual in workforce or career development. It has the appreciation of additional value for professional development, if the person has qualities, skills, capacities and capabilities to work in an organization. The professional development criteria is used by the employees as it can be helpful for them to increase career mobility and enhance performance.

According to (Boyes, 2004), Personal Professional development (PPD) is the process of demonstrating the aims and objectives that should be achieved by an individual, demonstrating the mission and vision of his career path, demonstrating the time frame his career path, assessing all the current realities in his journey of development, identifying all the core skills or knowledge needed for career development and selecting the best activities to perform activities for fulfilling all the careers skills needs.

According to (Gunetilleke, De Silva and Lokuge, 2011), Personal Professional development (PPD) Planning is the process of demonstrating some sorts of action plan which will be beneficial for educational development, career development, self-improvement and relationship development and the course of action for PPD planning will be designed based on the aspect of planning for personal development, developing awareness, setting the goals, developing values and analysing self-reflection. Personal Professional development (PPD) Planning is like a tool for evaluating competencies of an individual by presenting all information about his qualities, skills and capabilities and all these things will be evaluated to achieve the career goal.

The Personal and Professional development Plan (PPD) planning cycle

It is the demonstration of all activities that is evaluated to achieve the established goals and objectives for career development. This cycle is the representation of 7 activities for Personal Professional development and they are as follows (Eventus, 2015):

1. Establish the purpose/direction
2. Identify development needs
3. Identify learning opportunities
4. Formulate an action plan
5. Undertake the development
6. Record the outcomes
7. Evaluate and review

Personal and Professional Development Plan (PPD) Plan for myself

The detailed action plan in terms of PPD planning process to fulfil academic goals, personal skills, or career development goals:

Establish the purpose/direction

This stage is basically used to identify the purpose of personal professional development. So, my personal reflection and improvement on the following aspects will be established to fulfil the action plan. In response to that I have worked with my team for the following purposes:

• To achieve a better score and good academic knowledge, I have worked very hardly to cooperate the teams in different issues from sharing ideas to problem solving
• To develop the interpersonal skills like self-confidence, ethical norms, attitude or etiquette, I have focused on the group work to attend the group meeting timely, actively participate in the group to develop self-confidence.
• Achieving the awareness of current and future potential of career development in financial sector by the application of different financial data analysis assigned by the course instructor for developing professional growth (Eventus, 2015).
• To relate the career plan with organizational context, I practiced the real financial data analysis of different banks or other financial institutions.

Identify development needs

This stage is basically used to identify the need for personal and professional development. So, I do the followings for identifying the development needs by:

• Self-assessment tests: In every group meeting I assessed myself which area I need to develop like initially I did not share anything with my team but later on I emphasized on it under the consideration of development needs.
• Personal and professional diagnostics for assessing the skill: I focused on the combining skill of personal and professional skill which is missing. Initially, I found that both approaches need team building and team work skill. So, I sated to emphasize on it to engage activities with the team.
• Doing benchmarking exercises: Though, initially, it had lacking of motivation in group work, but later on I identified this area must need development. In the team, I always tried to motivate myself as well as my team members that we can achieve the goals if we are united (Eventus, 2015).

Identify learning opportunities

This stage is basically used to identify and design the learning opportunities for skill development and improvement. So, I always tried to find gaps between my knowledge and current skill as the deviation of learning could be identified.

Formulate an action plan

This stage is basically used to formulate the actions plan based on the gaps identification for the deviated skills and knowledge. So, the action plan that I will formulate will be based on SMART goal setting model which involves:

• Specific: The action plan for developing career in financial sector by achieving personal and professional skills
• Measurable: I have measured the action plan in terms of academic knowledge, interpersonal skill and professional skill.
• Achievable: The action plan that I have achieved would be on the the outcomes of skill development as well as personal professional development and forward those skill to career development.
• Realistic: The action plan would be realistic in terms of career development as I need to work on financial analytical skill development and research skill development for my career progress.
• Timely: The action plan that I have prepared, it will be for 6 months to achieve the personal and professional developments.

Undertake the development

This stage is basically used to put the plan into action. It means the ways to achieve the goal of personal and professional development and these are as follows:

• Team work in course duration
• Project work in course duration

Record the outcomes

This stage is basically used to keep the records of outcomes which is done in response to actions of development activity as well as personal and professional development.

So, I have recorded the outcome date wise with the identification of development need and development method with demonstrating the further action needed (Eventus, 2015).

Evaluate and review

This stage is the final stage for evaluating my development activity whether the development activities are appropriate for better result and worthwhile; and the skills, qualities, capabilities, working behaviour have improved so far (Eventus, 2015).

Listing of individual strengths and weaknesses

Individual strengths	Individual Weakness
·         Quick learner ·         Good Communication Skill ·         Team Building Skill ·         Problem Solving Skill ·         Friendly ·         Time management Skill ·         Self-Motivation ·         Self Confidence ·         Research and analytical skill	·         Lacking in Stress management ·         Lacking in leadership

Identification of the areas for improvement

From the above weakness points, it is clearly understood that those two weakness should be underlined for the areas of improvement. I think that while I was working in team for this PPD planning course, when there have the cases of too many random tasks regarding analysis of personal development skill and professional develop skills, I got stress. I could not concentrate on the normal activities to accomplish the group tasks and sometimes could not prepare the resources for group meetings. Similarly, I have the fear on leadership because I think that this is not a easy task to lead a team. So, the following two areas is needed to improve for me:

1.0 Stress management

Stress management is the technique of controlling the level of stress for improving everyday function. In response to personal and professional development, this is very much important to have the adaptability of stress management because an individual has to face so many stresses in their personal life and professional life. For the aspect of career development, I must have to manage as well as reduce my stress by following below ways (Lachman, 2011):

• I must have to keep a positive attitude in any cases or scenarios
• I must have the attitude of acceptance to control the stress.
• I must have to be assertive instead of aggressive.
• The way of expressing my opinions and feelings would be assertive
• I must have to control my angry and always show the defensive approach
• I must have to practice regularly meditation or yoga those are known as relaxation techniques to reduce the work stress (Goleman, 2008).
• I think that there is no exception of regular physical exercises to control stress level.
• I should be concerned on choosing food habit whereas it is preferred to have well-balanced meals.
• It is a very technique to reduce stress by managing the time effectively
• I must need to set work priorities and work limits, after that I must need to practice on saying no for those works which are beyond my work limits and priorities.
• There must have time for self-recreation with speeding good time with family members, fulfilling all personal hobbies and interests.
• I think that there must have proper rest and sleep after every day work to recover from stressful events.
• It should be avoided alcohol and drugs to reduce stress (Lachman, 2011).

2.0 Leadership

Leadership is a unique skill to influence other towards the goal achievement by directing, leading and motivating the team members. In response to personal and professional development, this is very much important to have the skill of leadership because in career progress an individual must have to play a leadership role on a specific project to lead the project and deliver a good outcome. For the aspect of career development, I must have to reduce the fear of leadership and must play a significant role to achieve the goal of PPD as follows (Mumford, Campion and Morgeson, 2007):

• I must have to keep a positive attitude in any issues.
• I must have to be confident to accept the challenges.
• There should have a visionary goals.
• I need to share my visionary goals, opinions and ideas with my team while I am going to lead a team.
• I must have to identify risk factors involved in the project tasks.
• After addressing the risk factors, it should be discussed with team by tem menas of group meeting and brain storming.
• I must have the motivational and team building skill while leading a team because both these things have positive impact in group and that may add value in professional development.
• I must have to play the role of leading through the risk by identifying each risk and their level or degree of risk and take procedures to mitigate the risk (Mumford, Campion and Morgeson, 2007).

Identification of employability skills that I have developed

The main aspect of the PPD planning is to develop employability skills by adopting skill of personal and professional skill because it is a combined result for developing the employability skills. So, over the duration of the course, the following employability skills I have developed which will be enable me to get success in this course and career path of workforce:

1.0 Problem-solving

There are some cases we need to solve in the group work, so I have worked on it and successfully execute it within the group to achieve the employability skill of problems solving by the following phenomenon:

• Analysing the facts and figures of different cases and data
• Overcoming the challenges in team work (Riebe, Roepen, Santarelli and Marchioro, 2010)
• Communication skills

I need to communicate with my team mates regularly regarding the group meeting and group discussion, where as we were involved in a group chat room via mobile apps. So, I have worked to develop the employability skill (Riebe, Roepen, Santarelli and Marchioro, 2010).

3.0 Adaptability Skill

I need to quickly adjust with so many changes of group works, So I think it would be beneficial for me to adapt with new ideas or new technologies.

4.0 Collaboration Skill

I have been recognizing strengths and weaknesses and according to that I have approached with my team members to assign and distribute tasks.

5.0 Time management Skill

I always attended the group meeting on time, and prepare all the calls notes, lectures and assignment within project time frame. So, I have worked on it to develop the employability skill (Riebe, Roepen, Santarelli and Marchioro, 2010).

6.0 Technology use

I have to work on computer by using different tools like Microsoft Applications, internet usage, Google searches for getting information and data, knowing the style and uses of references. So, I have worked on it to develop the employability skill.  Even though, I have to use the mobile technology to communicate with my team via whatsapp applications and usage internet from mobile also.

7.0 Personality traits

There are some character traits that I need to impose for accomplishing the course. I need to show professionalism while designing the development activities for career development. I need to show creativity while working in a team. I need to my confidence while facing the challenges to data limitation, tram conflicts and so on (Riebe, Roepen, Santarelli and Marchioro, 2010).

Conclusions

The conclusion for that PPD planning could be drawn on the aspect of successful achievement if employability skill because personal and professional development plan is mainly focusing in the career progress and career development (Powers, 2015). So, the justification of my position is that I am very much benefitted from that course and during hat course duration I need to play so many significant roles. I need to work on various development skills for improving my personal capabilities, I need to work on my academic research work, assignment task, class lectures for getting a good score. I need to work on a project for developing the professional growth where I was involved with a team to do team work in response to adapt some career development skills. Therefore, my reflective position from that course that now I know how to set positive mind set up for accepting any challenges. I know to how to manage time. I have good efficiency on communication to analytical skills. Though, my preferred sector is financial sector, still have good background knowledge, skills and ideas on financial analysis to do the research work in workplace very effectively.

References

Barton, L., 2012. Professional Training as a Tool of Skill Building and Morale Enhancement. Executive Development, 5(2), pp.251-265.

Blandford, S. and Knowles, C., 2009. Developing Professional Practice, 0-7. Harlow, England: Pearson Longman.

Boyes, C., 2004. Discourse analysis and personal/professional development. Radiography, 10(2), pp.109-117.

Eventus, 2015. Professional Development Planning Cycle. Managerial Development, pp. 01-10.

Goleman, D., 2008. Emotional Intelligence. 3rd ed. New York: Bantam.

Gunetilleke, N., De Silva, N. and Lokuge, G., 2011. Development Professionals: Reconciling Personal Values with Professional Values. IDS Bulletin, 42(5), pp.45-51.

Lachman, V., 2011. Stress Management a Personal and Professional Skill. Journal of Addictions Nursing, 3(2), pp.48-51.

Mumford, T., Campion, M. and Morgeson, F., 2007. The leadership skills strataplex: Leadership skill requirements across organizational levels. The Leadership Quarterly, 18(2), pp.154-166.

Powers, K., 2015. Making professional development personal. Teachers and Curriculum, 15(1).

Riebe, L., Roepen, D., Santarelli, B. and Marchioro, G., 2010. Teamwork: effectively teaching an employability skill. Education + Training, 52(6/7), pp.528-539.

 

Appendix: Personal and Professional Development Plan (PDP)

Name:			Desired Position: Chief Financial Officer
Career Mission Statement: To be Chief Financial Officer in a financial institutions.
Major Career Goals:
Goal 1:	Financial Analyst	Target Date:	31.12.2020
Goal 2:	Finance Manager	Target Date:	31.12.2022
Goal 3:	Financial Advisor	Target Date:	31.12.2025
Goal 4:	Chief Financial Officer	Target Date:	31.12.2030
SMART Objectives (What are my development objectives)	Priority (High; medium or low in importance)	Success Criteria (How will I recognise success?)	Actions	Resources (Required to achieve objectives)	Target date (for achieving my objective)	Challenges expected/Solutions
To be comfortable in career	High	Goal Achievement	Further Studies	Team support and data resources	31.12.20	Team conflict
To act positively in career	High	Stress Management	Professional skill	Own personality	31.06.21	Work Stress
To act timely in career	High	Time management	Time management Skill	Own personality	31.12.21	Time limitations
To measure the risk of career development	High	Risk management and reduction	Further Studies	Team support and data resources	31.06.22	Data and information limitations
To assess performances	High	Feedback	Based on applications	Team support and data resources

Written by

Md. Shadequr Rahaman

Email: [email protected]