How to Plan and Record Your CPD

As a professional person, it is important that you keep your career development up-to-date. You will need to plan your CPD.  Although it takes time, CPD plans are a great way to reflect on and improve your skills to help you reach your career goals.

What are my goals/needs?

Your current situation can be a good place to begin your CPD plan. What’s my current situation? What are my goals? These are the questions that you should be asking to determine the areas you wish to grow in. It is important to summarize your current career activities and to use this information to help you plan for the future. You can set smaller milestones and monitor your progress to see if your goals are being met. Think about this:

• These are the steps you will take in the short term to get closer to your career aspirations
• Which new skills, knowledge or experience are necessary to achieve these aspirations?
• What do you need to do to make this happen?

For your plan to be of value, it’s important that you are honest with yourself. What does success actually look like for you? It is important to understand what your motivation is. Do you feel that you are succeeding at your job? Your goals need to be specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, time-bound. SMART.

What can I do to get this done?

Now that you have identified the skills and knowledge you desire or need, it is time to plan how to get there. This is crucial because it allows you to identify the skills and capabilities you need to reach your goals. It also gives you the opportunity to plan for new learning opportunities and professional development. Think about how you will know when you achieve this goal. Will you be able to gain a qualification? Are you able to manage a group or team?

When defining your activities, be clear and specific. So you’ll need to state exactly which course, event or training session you need to attend.

What support or resources will I need?

Next, you will need to think about what you can do to achieve a goal. You will need to identify appropriate training opportunities, events and publications. Additionally, you may want to do additional research to see what support is available, for example, trade bodies.  Only you can know what you are looking for.

What will success look like for me?

What is the best time to consider this a success? Decide what success means to you and what it will impact, your career, your professional growth, and your wellbeing. Success could be passing a course, a promotion or a better level of understanding. only you can set your success criteria.

Set your Milestone dates

Your significant milestone dates must include:

• Start Date
• For review and completion, target dates
• Actual Completion Date

You can only fill in two of these sections when you plan your CPD. You won’t know the actual completion date until then. You can however fill in the target date that you would like to complete this task by!

You should be realistic about your timeframes. It’s okay if you don’t achieve that goal by the time you set. That’s why it’s called a CPD plan. Sometimes plans don’t work out the way we expected.