Personal Development Plan for Professional Success

This article discusses the importance of creating a Personal Development Plan (PDP) for professional success. It covers topics such as knowing yourself, setting goals, and managing challenges. The article also includes a section on personal branding and how to promote yourself effectively. The content is relevant for students and professionals alike.

KNOWING & DEVELOPING YOURSELF FOR PROFESSIONAL SUCCESS
PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT PLAN (PDP)
__________
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What is a personal development plan?
The aim of creating a personal development plan is to document a process of self-
analysis, personal reflection and honest appraisal of your strengths and weaknesses.
This should enable you to evaluate your current position and where you are right now
and consider your future development. The purpose of Personal Development Plan
(PDP) is to encourage you to learn and plan by becoming more aware of your
capabilities and the opportunities around you .The PDP can be applied in a range of
contexts, changing the way you approach your studies, make choices in both your
academic and personal life and prioritise your actions.
What do I need to do?
As part of your assignment you are required to complete this workbook. You should
carefully review what you have learned during the Knowing and Developing Yourself
module (including assigned readings) and apply this in the PDP document.
The word count for the PDP should be 1,500 words.
You should include copies from your strengths reports and reference the resources that
are available to you through the Clifton Strengths for Students web site, these will be
highlighted and part of your homework during the module.
Assignment Marking
The submitted plan will be marked using the following grading criteria:
Coherence (30%) – Does the plan link with the goals and the student’s current
situation? Has the individual thought through what development needs to take place
and how this will be achieved?
Engage with course materials (30%) – Has the individual drawn on the content of the
module to construct the plan? Has the individual used core theories, models, or
frameworks to provide a structure to the plan? Has the individual used the analysis
techniques presented in class in the planning process? What other evidence is being
used to support the plan?
Wider Reading and Reflection (30%) – Has the student demonstrated wider reading and
reflection outside of the classroom? Are there new materials and reading being
introduced? Has the student continued the reflection process beyond the course? What
other evidence is being used to support the plan?
Communication (10%) – Is the student able to communicate effectively his/her plan and
the rationale for this? Is there a structure to the plan? Does it have a conclusion?
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PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT PLAN
____________________________
KNOWING YOURSELF
MARSHALLOW TEAM CHALLENGE
Questions Responses
What did you learn from this
activity?
(Consider how the team collaborated
and worked as a team, and your role
within the team)
I was a part of the marshmallow team challenge with few of my team
members. This was the first time when I was executing this type of
challenge. This particular activity helped in involving numerous teams for
competing to assemble the tallest free standing structure within few given
materials of 20 sticks of uncooked spaghetti, one marshmallow, one yard of
tape and one yard of string.
I was the team leader in this particular team and hence I had the core
responsibility of managing the team effectively and efficiently. My entire
team collaborated as well as worked perfectly within the time provide of 45
minutes. We were able to complete our task of marshmallow challenge for
the support that we provided to one another.
How will this help you when working
in teams as part of your MSc?
Why do future employers look for
team working skills?
Marshmallow challenge is extremely effective since it promotes a proper
sense of camaraderie as well as achievement. A well rounded and
completed final product was the result of this specific team work. I will even
enhance a positive reinforcement is also possible for the team.
The future employers often look for the team working skills since
communication is easily improved and creativity is encouraged. Another
important and significant advantage of the team working skill is that the
overall collaboration is eventually incremented.
VALUES
Questions Responses
What are your top 3 values & why are I have some of the most significant and important values and amongst
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they important to you? them, the most vial and the top 3 values are creativity, energetic and
innovation.
Each of these above mentioned three values are extremely important to
me for bringing success and effectiveness in my work. Creativity is
responsible for allowing creativeness in my work. The second value of
being energetic helps me to complete every work actively and promptly.
Finally, the third value of innovation has helped me in solving problems by
providing innovative ideas to the team.
How will knowing these values help
you during your studies and in your
future career?
Since, I am involved with a creative career option, these 3 values of
creativity, energetic and innovation are important for me for helping me
during my studies and in my future career. Creativity will be extremely
helpful for encouraging me to learn new things and have better
communication skills. I will also be able to take better decisions and have
energy efficient efforts for the completion of my education. In future this
would be helpful for me as I would be able to incorporate the energy
concepts easily for my professional life. Regarding innovation, I would be
learning anything new or unusual for my education and would be able to
provide innovative as well as new ideas to the entire team within my work
place.
What steps could you take to ensure
you live by these values? Think of
some actions you can take?
For being creative, innovative and energetic, I should follow some steps.
The first and the foremost step is to start conducting the start-up meetings
and then surrounding with proper inspiration. The next step is to get a
buddy in pick up smaller projects and team activities. These steps would be
extremely beneficial for me to ensure that I could live with the values. The
few actions, which I should take for ensuring the values are distinguishing
between creativity and innovation and undertaking the correct team
members within the team.
Download the Values Inventory from Blackboard
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StrengthsFinder
Questions Responses
Name your top 5 from your strengths
profile?
1. Input
2. Activator
3. Analytical
4. Maximizer
5. Ideation
What surprised you when reading the
report?
Identify any specific words or phrases
that you agreed with and why?
While reading my strengths insight report, I identified five of my top
strengths of input, activator, analytical, maximize and ideation. Although, I
had the idea that I do comprise of several important and significant
strengths, I was quite surprised after checking my strength of analytical. I
could easily provide subsequent innovative ideas of completion of the
work, given to me effectively and efficiently. Being analytical refers to the
person, who has skills of logical reasoning and is systematic. However, I
have never completed any of my work with proper reasoning and
systematic method. Hence, I was extremely surprised after checking the
report and identified that even I comprise of this particular strength.
The strength insights report has provided the result that I have the
strengths of being an activator. I strongly agree with this particular phrase
since I am extremely active in each and every work that is being provided
to me.
What can you do to invest in these
talents to become strengths?
Identify some specific actions – list at
least 3
My talents of providing input, activator, analytical, ideation and maximizer
could easily become strengths if creativity, determination and enthusiasm
would be invested.
I should identify three specified actions for making my five talents to
strengths and these three actions are as follows:
i) Maintaining Enthusiasm: I should maintain enthusiasm in every work
so that I could remain an activator in work.
ii) Being Creative: I should become creative and bring creativity in my
work for proper completion of my studies.
iii) Having Determination: I should be determined enough for completion
of tasks and works.
How can others see these strengths The others could eventually see these strengths as the perceived
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as perceived weaknesses?
(sometimes known as basement)
weaknesses because they would try to put me down. Moreover, my
strengths of analytical, ideation and activator could be described as my
weaknesses for the core purpose of demotivating me. However, I would not
consider these as my weaknesses and take them as the opportunities for
the enhancement of the strengths.
What have you learned from your
strengths profile?
Consider what you discovered about
yourself and how this might relate to
you as a person and your career
interests.
I have learned from my strengths profile that I am extremely active and I
could provide inputs to the work given to me effectively. Moreover, I have
also learnt that I could solve issues by logical reasoning and could even
maximize the efficiency and productivity of the team, in which I am
working.
I have discovered that I am extremely friendly and have major enthusiasm
and motivation in work. These two features are extremely important for me
as well as my career interests.
Attach your strengths insight report and highlight those words and phrases that relate to you.
Attach your prioritised student action items and highlight those key action
DEVELOPING YOURSELF
Setting Future Goals and Aspirations
SWOT Analysis
Before setting your personal development plans, you should conduct a personal analysis: Eg - What are my
strengths and weaknesses? What external opportunities or threats might affect any plans I might make?
Strengths
My major strengths are input, activator, analytical,
maximizer, and ideation, creative, innovative and
energetic.
Areas for Development
In spite of having the mentioned specific strengths,
I even have some of the weaknesses or areas of
development. My first and the foremost weakness is
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that I am disorganized and get easily distracted.
Moreover, I am often procrastinate.
Opportunities
I have few opportunities in my career like English learning
clubs, English speech platform such as TED and
communication with the team members.
Threats
The threats that I have within myself for the career
interests are not being a good team leader and
having lack of technical skills for the technological
works.
Create at least 5 specific goals – these can be a mix of Career, Academic Studies, Personal Development, New
Skills, Feedback that you have received or personal health goals.
What do I want to
achieve?
(short / long term
goals)
How am I going to
achieve it?
What additional support
and resources will I
need?
What strengths can I
use to help achieve
these goals?
By When?
Example – I want to
achieve a distinction
I want to learn new and
creative things.
I will dedicate
6hrs per module
for studying
I will communicate
with my class mates
and teachers to
learn these things.
Regularly follow up
with tutor
I need more books and
support from my peers
and teachers.
Focus and
Discipline
Creativity and
activator
Next 3
months
Next 1
month.
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I want to become
successful in
professional life.
I want to buy my own
house.
I want to prioritize
my goals and
objectives of my
professional life.
I will complete my
education and get a
decent job for
getting my
achievements in the
goals.
Proper checking of the
effectiveness and
efficiency of goals and
objectives.
I will arrange my goals
as per priority by taking
regular follow ups.
Activator and
providing innovation.
Input and maximizer.
Next 6
months.
Next 6
months.
Managing and Dealing with Challenges at University
Outline the key challenges you might face in the next few weeks and months?
The major challenges that I might face in the next few weeks and months at the University is conflicts. Due to
the change in environment, I might get frustrated in the beginning and hence fear and uncertainty might be
evoked. The lack of communication is the next key challenge within the University. These two challenges
could be extremely problematic for my success in educational career.
How can I go about managing these?
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For the proper management of the two challenges that I might face in the University, I could properly
communicate with my team members and take necessary actions effectively. Moreover, I could talk with my
tutors and then attend various seminars or workshops.
Knowing my strengths what can I do to overcome these challenges?
Since, I have the strengths of being an activator and maximizer, I would be able to overcome the challenges
of conflicts and lack of communication. I should actively take part in the team activities and hence would be
able to eradicate these issues easily.
PROMOTING YOURSELF
Personal Branding
Questions Responses
What is a Brand?
Brand can be stated as the unique design, sign, symbol and the
combination of everything for the creation of an image for the identification
of product as well as differentiation of the product from the competitors.
Why do we buy one Brand over
another?
We often buy one brand over another for the few of the reasons like
popularity, costs, innovation and market demand.
What do we expect from our brands?
We have few expectations from the brand that we are buying. The major
expectations are satisfaction, beliefs and quality of the product.
How many brands do we come across
daily?
We come across for more than 1000 brands daily for several products.
Why is this relevant to my job
search?
Since, brand searching comprises of satisfaction and beliefs, it is
completely relevant to my job search.
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In the box below write down what three words would you like someone to use when describing you?
Three words that I would like someone to use while describing me are as follows:
i) Creative
ii) Innovative
iii) Positive.
Attach responses to personal feedback form
What do I do Next?
Write down below all the different ways (touch points) you will be promoting Brand You.
The two different ways for promoting brand for me are as follows:
i) I would check the negativity in my life and enhance positive thoughts.
ii) The next way would be that I will take proper guidance from my tutors and other peers,
PERSONAL REFLECTION
What did you learn from this module? What did you discover about yourself and others? How can you put
this into practice?
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Reference any specific reading / videos / personal thoughts that inspired and encouraged you whilst completing your
PDP
I have learnt that I am quite creative and innovative in respect to my work. I pay extra attention to the tasks
assigned to me. While completing the marshmallow challenge, I was the team leader in the activity and was able to
manage the team effectively and efficiently. The team building is the most important step that our team has taken
for ensuring utmost success in our academic year. I got proper motivation within work place and the speed and
efficiency is incremented to a higher level. Moreover, when I will be working in teams, I would be able to resolve
each and every team issues and motivate the team members for improving the production. Moreover, I have the
ability of identifying the issues and then resolve them properly. Due to the efficiency and positivity that I have within
me, I did not face any complexity while executing an activity.
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