What is a Personal Development Plan (PDP)?
Personal Development Planning is the process of creating an action plan based on goal-setting and planning for personal development within the context of a career, education or for self-improvement.
The PDP, also called an IDP (Individual Development Plan) or a PEP (Personal Enterprise Plan), usually includes a statement of one's aspirations, strengths or competencies, education and training, and stages or steps to indicate how the plan is to be realized. Personal development plans may also include a statement of one's career and lifestyle priorities, career positioning, analysis of opportunities and risks, and alternative plans.
The use of the PDP module in the Signify System is aimed at creating and maintaining an employee's PDP.
Process/data flow diagram
The following process/data flow diagram highlights all system components supporting the PDP and its usage.
Process of creating a personal development plan
Before looking into the steps required for registering PDP initiatives, it must be understood that registering a PDP initiative is but one step in the bigger process of creating a Personal Development Plan. The full process can be described as:
- Create a Personal Development Plan (listing amongst other things career aspirations).
- Add initiatives/courses to the PDP.
- Some initiatives/courses will be added on behalf of the company.
- Some initiatives will be added by the employee and his manager.
- Approve the PDP.
- Maintain and update the courses’ progress.
We will follow these steps to create a new PDP for an employee. We will demonstrate both the employee and the manager’s perspective on the process. Creating a PDP, forms the backdrop for the discussion as to how to link PDP initiatives from the Performance Management module.
