Personal Development Plans (PDPs), sometimes called Individual Development Plans (IDPs) are an important part of your professional planning. Continuous personal development is best achieved with a plan of action detailing your aspirations across many areas.

1. Personal Development Plan Examples
• Personal Development Plans (PDPs), sometimes called Individual
Development Plans (IDPs) are an important part of your professional
planning. Continuous personal development is best achieved with a
plan of action detailing your aspirations across many areas. Having a
visual chart of where you are, where you’d like to be and what steps
are needed to achieve your goals is an excellent starting place.
Personal development plan examples are widely available online, so
it’s easy to get a feel for what steps to take.
• Wikipedia includes in the definition of Personal Development those
activities that improve awareness and identity, develop talents and
potential….facilitate employability, enhance quality of life and
contribute to the realisation of dreams and aspirations. That is a
great deal to expect from a single document. It’s a great idea to look
at a selection of personal development plan examples.
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2. Personal Development Plan Examples
• Most examples of such plans contain important and searching
questions, such as ‘what are my strengths’ and ‘what are my areas
for further development’. These are followed by the goal setting
section, which focuses on what actions and resources are needed to
achieve the stated goals. Helpfully this plan also includes separate
areas for short-term goals (achievable in the next 12 months),
medium term goals (next 2-3 years), and longer term goals (beyond 3
years). Such a detailed self-development plan is helpful to remain
focussed on the stated goal, as it is all too easy to become caught up
in daily life and merely react to situations rather than be proactive.
Taking some time to write down ‘My personal development’ in
template form will help to crystallise your thoughts and begin to
form the basis of a strategy.
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3. • Another good example of the depth into which some plans delve is
found on the Self Improvement Mentor site which requires much more
fine detail when planning. At MBM, we offer a similarly detailed
analysis of your team to help determine the long term objectives. If
you are building a team to specifically supply the Big Four
Supermarkets, we can help create a personal development template
for your team. Uniquely qualified to give advice on and deliver training
tailored to the Big Four, we are the only Training Provider specifically
tailoring our training to supermarket suppliers.
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4. Key principles for completing this template are:
• Complete each section, see numbers 1 to 7, one at a time. For example, in
column 2, consider the problems you encounter each day at work, like
missing deadlines, or getting stuck in your email inbox.
• Use a page for each skill/behaviour that you wish to improve, e.g. Time
Management or People Management.
• Do not spend too long completing each page. The mistake many people
make is spending hours creating a great plan and then never touching it
again because it is too big and scary. A total of 45 Minutes is recommended
to write the plan.
• In columns 5, 6 and 7, write one simple and practical task that you will do
each month to improve this skill, e.g. Read 3 chapters of the ‘Eat that Frog’
time management book, or research ‘great project management for 20
minutes’, or book some executive coaching with MBM. The simpler and more
practical, the more likely you are to keep re-visiting your personal
development plan.
• Write on this template in pencil so that you can rub it out and write over it.
Spending time typing and formatting takes effort that you could be spending
developing yourself and also makes the document less likely to be used.
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5. Better Ways to Self Development
• The quest to better yourself is a lifelong process. It seems that every week a
selection of new titles is released. There are many different choices on how
to chart your personal development and all share some common threads:
• Where are you now?
• Where do you want to be?
• What do you need to do to get there?
• Once you’ve plotted those questions and given some serious thought to the
answers, you may benefit from some professional people development with
a specialist trainer who knows your niche and is an expert in your field. We
have a full programme of training courses designed specifically with focus on
suppliers to the big four supermarkets. At MBM we are delighted to provide
your team with the tools they need in order to succeed in this market.
• We are a specialist training provider with a stable of professionally qualified
trainers who all have Big Four experience. Between us we have over 100
years of industry experience, which is a lot of groceries!
www.makingbusinessmatter.co.uk

6. Setting Goals to Maximise Personal
Development
• Successful people know that setting goals and visualising where you want to be are both key to achieving
those goals. Benjamin Franklin famously said, ‘If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.’ He knew that if
you don’t decide where you wish to go, then life will take you where it pleases. Would you leave your
future to chance?
• You may have heard of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs,
which ranks the things which motivate people. The
needs are arranged in a pyramid shape, with the most
basic needs forming the base.
• Once a person’s basic needs are met, they begin
to quest for more, moving higher through the
pyramid until they reach the pinnacle of Self
Actualisation.
• It is a long journey to the top of the pyramid, and
to ensure you make the most of your path, it is
a good idea to plan the steps along the way. We
can help you to do that.
• To discuss how we can help you and your team to
develop your personal development plan please
contact us.
www.makingbusinessmatter.co.uk

7. What do we do?
A typical People Development programme with a supplier to the big
four UK supermarkets consists of a combination of the items that helps
suppliers to achieve their business objectives.
Try our popular
Category Management Academy

8. Where next?
• Are you a UK Grocery professional with a desire to ‘get ahead?
Review our Executive Coaching product.
• See a video testimonial from someone who has used our Executive
Coaching product.
• Learn more, more quickly and easily with Sticky Learning ®.
• Making Business Matter,
Sticky Learning House
5 Cheshire Road
Thame,
OXFORDSHIRE,
OX9 3LQ
• Telephone: 0333 247 2012
• Email: helpme@makingbusinessmatter.co.uk
www.makingbusinessmatter.co.uk