Personal and Professional Development Report: Planning and Skills

This report delves into the realm of personal and professional development, emphasizing the significance of planning and skill enhancement. It begins by defining personal development planning and highlighting its importance in setting goals and identifying areas for improvement. The report then outlines key areas for professional growth, such as communication, research, ICT usage, teamwork, and problem-solving skills, providing a SMART action plan for achieving these goals. A reflective journal is presented, utilizing the Gibbs reflective cycle to analyze a personal experience and extract valuable lessons. The conclusion underscores the necessity of continuous self-assessment and development to build a successful career. The report includes references to relevant literature and online resources.

PERSONAL AND
PROFESSIONAL
DEVELOPMENT

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION.......................................................................................................................................3
TASK 2.......................................................................................................................................................3
Personal development Planning...............................................................................................................3
Importance of Personal development planning........................................................................................3
Areas of Professional development.........................................................................................................5
Gibbs Reflective cycle.............................................................................................................................7
CONCLUSION...........................................................................................................................................9
REFERENCES..........................................................................................................................................10

INTRODUCTION
Personal and Professional development refers to a process by which individual engaged
in the process of self development and learning in order to meet desired goals (Komattil, Hande
and Subramaniam, 2016). The report will define meaning of personal development planning in
which it will also show its importance. It will prepare a reflective journal in which the leaner will
identify its strengths and weakness. I will identify my areas of professional development.
Relevant model will be used to define personal reflection.
TASK 2
Personal development Planning
It refers to a planning process in which individual establish its aims and objectives.
Individual identifies the skills and knowledge which will be needed to built a long term career. It
also provides framework through which the individual can identify its key areas of development
by analysis its own weakness and strengths (Kroll and Dussias, 2017). Not even an individual, a
manger working in a firm also needs to do self assessment for sharpen their own skills and
knowledge.
Importance of Personal development planning
Personal development planning is crucial as it helps to renew and update existing skills of
a person. It helps to establish goals and objectives that what to achieve how to achieve and when
to achieve. It defines clear career perspective in which a person wants to grow. It assembles
competence realties to identify needs of knowledge, competence and skills (Personal
development planning, 2019). Employers of the company also know the significance of personal
development planning. They invest on personal development plan to nurture their staff and
employees on timely basis.

Figure 1 Personal development cycle (Source: Personal development planning, 2019)
Purpose
To build my career as a manager in reputed firm. I need to achieve the employability and study
skills which are as follows –
 Communication skills – Development of communication skills is important from both
the perceptive of employability as well as study skills. Verbal communication is
important as it will help me to direct and deliberate the tasks to my employees as a future
manager. If I have effective communication skills it will help me to explain the current
strategies of my company to my subordinates. While giving presentations in company’s
meeting it is important that I have command over my communication skills. Written
communication skill has also its own significance as I need to respond to company’s
mails. While writing duties and responsibilities of the employees on paper, as a manager
it is necessary that my writing skills are keen.
 Research skills – These skills are important for bringing innovative product in the
market. To gain the knowledge of subject in depth it is crucial to have research skills. As
a future marketing manger I have to do market research. For developing best product for
the company market analysis needs to be done (Cashwell and McKibben, 2018). Hence,
by developing research skills I will be able to gather market information like current

customers trends and choices, By this I will able to develop innovative product for my
company.
 Use of ICT’s – ICT helps to enable education for my professional development.
Information and communication technology refers to an education mode that uses
communications and information technology in order to enhance, support and optimizing
the delivered information. It can improve my learning and I will be able to adopt new
teaching methods. As per Sangster, 2017, it is stated that the students who use ICT
continuously are able to gain better knowledge, develop innovative capabilities, and learn
presentation skills at very early period of their education.
 Team Work – As a future manager I need to learn team work. Team work helps to
achieve targets of the company on timely basis. By doing work cooperatively there is
savage of time. It also helps me to divide my tasks and reduce the workload. According
to Davies, Curtin and Robson, 2017, it is said that, “Together one can achieve more”
 Problem solving skills – These skills are significant from a career perspective as well as
student. If I am able to solve problems of my own then only I am able to succeed in my
life. As I also want to become future manager. Hence, Managers are responsible to
resolve conflicts between the employees. It is a barrier for organizational success.
Therefore, I need to learn problem solving skills.
Areas of Professional development
Identify my development needs
Strengths - My strength is my communication skill is good. Thus, I am able to convey my
message to others easily. As I want to become manager in future. Thus, if my communication
skills are good I will be able to tackle my workforce. I will be able to give training to the
employees. To give directions to my subordinate effective communication skills is needed. This
skill helps me at my every stage of my life. To convince others again this skills are helpful
(Rowe, 2017). My creativity skills are also good. Hence, I am able to bring innovative product
for my company.
Weaknesses - My weakness is that I am unable to manage my time. There is problem of time
management I am unable to finish my work on timely basis. I always arrive late to my college
and miss my lectures. This problem has very negative consequences. I have suffered a lot

because I haven't reached on time. My problem solving skills are also not good. I always get
hyper if any problem occurred in my life and loose my self confidence.
Opportunities of development
There is an opportunity that I can learn time management. By this I will be able to complete all
my work on time without getting delayed. As I want to be future manager in recognized
company, it will also help me to finish my organizational tasks on time. I can also improve my
problem solving skills through this I will be able to work more freely. As I will able to resolve
my problems the doors for the success gets opened (Schmidt, 2017).
Smart Action Plan
Goal Specific Achievable Attainable Relevant Time
Required
Time
Managemen
t
I want to learn
time
management.
By
scheduling
my work I
will be able to
finish all the
work on time.
I will prioritize
my work a day
prior so that
will be able to
finish task on
timely basis.
I will be
able to
achieve
company’s
target
before the
deadline.
2 months
Problem
Solving
I need to learn
problem
solving skills.
By doing
meditation
and yoga I
will able to
improve
problem
solving skills.
I will play
logical games
to increase my
brain
efficiency. By
which I am able
to resolve my
problems.
By this I
will also be
able to
resolve
conflicts
and
disputes
among the
employees
as a future
manager.
3 months

This will
helpful to
increase
productivity
in my firm.
Review and evaluation of my plan
This plan is achieved and I have improved my problem solving and time management skills to
become a future manager.
Gibbs Reflective cycle
Gibbs reflective cycle has 6 stages that have presented below to have an overlook of my personal
reflection.
 Description - I was working in a multinational company and was happy with my job in
initial days of my joining but later on i got into a trouble. The incident was that I had to
prepare a financial statement for the year but due to my problem of time management I
delayed and my boss scolded me in front of everyone and also suspended me for a week.
 Feelings – I was feeling so sad and unhappy not only with my boss but also with myself
and this incident changed my entire thinking for the boss initially but later on I
understood the real cause and fact that the fault is of mine and also a little bit of my boss.
 Evaluation – In the whole situation the most bad thing was that my boss insulted me in
front of my fellow teammates and I felt so guilty of myself, but the best thing was that I
understood that I must work on managing my time (Gibbs’ reflective cycle, 2020).

Figure 2 Gibbs Reflective learning cycle (Source: Gibbs’ reflective cycle, 2020)
 Analysis – When I thought more about this incident and deeply studied myself then I
realize that the problem was not so small but was very big and I realized the fact that I
must manage time for everything properly by which no work gets less time or a lot of
time.
 Conclusion – The major lesson for me was that I must work on my weakness and remove
it. Also if I had done that work before time then, my boss must have appreciated me in
front of my fellow employees. This incident told me a great lesson. (Swain, 2016)
 Action Plan - If this incident again happened in my career due to some reason then I will
not feel this bad, instead I will try my best next time and will try that this will never
happens again. This incident told me this that a person should not feel guilty of
something, instead he must try his best next time.


CONCLUSION
It has been concluding from the above study that Personal development planning is
necessary to improve self weakness. It also helps to build a good career in the future. It helps to
establish goals and aims which a person wants to achieve. It has been summarized that through
using Gibbs model one can perform self assessment.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Cashwell, C.S. and McKibben, W.B., 2018. Personal and Professional Counselor Identity
Development.
Davies, K., Curtin, M. and Robson, K., 2017. Impact of an international workplace learning
placement on personal and professional development. Australian occupational therapy
journal. 64(2).pp.121-128.
Komattil, R., Hande, S.H. and Subramaniam, B., 2016. Evaluation of a personal and professional
development module in an undergraduate medical curriculum in India. Korean journal of
medical education, 28(1). p.117.
Kroll, J.F. and Dussias, P.E., 2017. The benefits of multilingualism to the personal and
professional development of residents of the US. Foreign language annals. 50(2).pp.248-
259.
Rowe, G., 2017. Personal and professional development. The Handbook for Nursing Associates
and Assistant Practitioners. p.40.
Sangster, C., 2017. Planning and organizing personal and professional development. Taylor &
Francis.
Schmidt, M.K., 2017. Personal and professional development through internship engagement.
In Field-based learning in family life education (pp. 39-49). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
Swain, J., 2016. The effect of Phase One training on young recruits' personal and professional
development in the British army. Journal of Youth Studies. 19(1). pp.117-132.
Online
Gibbs’ reflective cycle, 2020. [Online]. Available through:
<https://my.cumbria.ac.uk/media/MyCumbria/Documents/ReflectiveCycleGibbs.pdf>

Personal development planning, 2019. [Online]. Available through: <
https://www.managers.org.uk/knowledge-bank/personal-development-planning >