KNOWING & DEVELOPING YOURSELF FOR PROFESSIONAL SUCCESS: PDP Assignment

This assignment is a Personal Development Plan (PDP) workbook designed to help students at Leicester Castle Business School reflect on their skills, values, and career aspirations. The PDP includes exercises such as the Marshmallow Challenge, Values Inventory, and StrengthsFinder assessment, encouraging self-analysis and the identification of strengths and weaknesses. Students are required to set short-term and long-term goals, conduct a SWOT analysis, and develop strategies to overcome challenges. The assignment emphasizes the importance of teamwork, adaptability, and personal branding, guiding students in creating a plan for professional success and providing them with the tools to enhance their communication and planning abilities. The student's plan focuses on their strengths and weaknesses, the challenges they face, and how they can use their strengths to overcome these challenges.

KNOWING & DEVELOPING YOURSELF FOR PROFESSIONAL SUCCESS
PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT PLAN (PDP)
__________
This PDP contains exercises that we will complete during the module. These exercises
are designed to help you think about your skills and how to make the most of your time
at Leicester Castle Business School.
This module is accredited and this PDP forms a major piece of your module.
Submission Date: _______________________________
1

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 at the Leicester Castle Business School.
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.
You should consider this as a live document that captures your current situation at
DMU, your goals and aspirations both whilst at studying at the Leicester Castle
Business School and longer term.
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?

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)
Through the eighteen minutes marshmallow challenge, the things that I learn is thinking
on my feet under intense pressure, which also required to practice better creativity and
innovation practices. We were a team of four and my role in it was to plan the structure.
I spent the initial three minutes for designing the structure and also asked the other
teammates to provide their suggestions. The complete process helps me in learning
about the significance of various aspects that include collaboration, quick prototype,
and iterate (Bergh et al., 2017).

How will this help you when working
in teams as part of your MSc?
Why do future employers look for
teamworking skills?
This helped me in understanding the true meaning of collaboration and thinking of the
best alternatives under pressure. This is a quality that will be required when I will be
working with a team in my MSc, as this will help in facing the uncertainties that may
emerge in a group.
The future employers gave a huge preference on the team working and team
collaboration as it is vital in the current working environment. Team working skills
facilitate the individual with the potential to work in a diverse environment and they
give equal respect to each team member’s views and working style, so team working
skills helps the individual in adjusting to the different working conditions (Brooks and
Anumudu, 2015).

VALUES
Questions Responses
What are your top 3 values & why are
they important to you? The three values that are important to me are empathy, adaptability, and responsibility.
All these values are important to me as they help me in attaining the other values that
are also important for teamwork that include innovation, creativity, and learning.
How will knowing these values help
you during your studies and in your
future career?
Through empathy, responsibility, and adaptability, the individual gains an experience
that helps him in understanding the different perspectives, situation, and changes, in a
better manner. Hence, helping in developing innovation, creativity, and learning. In the
current working environment, there is a huge importance of teamwork and innovation
(Calvo-Lorenzo, 2016).
What steps could you take to ensure
you live by these values? Think of
some actions you can take?
The steps that can be undertaken to ensure that I stick by these values are-
 In a teamwork setting, I have made a conscious effort of letting
each member present their opinion after I have briefed them
about the main objectives of the project. This helps me in
improving my empathy skills.
 Also, there are a number of uncertainties that may arise, I have

an approach to analyzing all the possible failures that may occur
and having an alternative approach in all such situations. This
helps in improving my adaptability and responsibility skills
(Gehl, 2011).
Download the Values Inventory from Blackboard
StrengthsFinder
Questions Responses
Name your top 5 from your
strengths profile?
1. Adaptability
2. Empathy
3. Responsibility
4. Relator
5. Consistency
What surprised you when
reading the report?
The word that has surprised me is relator and in the context, it has been used.
According to the report, the word means the attitude of a person towards the

Identify any specific words or
phrases that you agreed with
and why?
other people, especially the one he knows from before. In my opinion, the word
relator means an association that explains the connection that a team share
amongst each other. But in the report, it has been used as a connection that has to
be built up for better teamwork.
What can you do to invest in
these talents to become
strengths?
Identify some specific actions –
list at least 3
The three actions that can be undertaken to transform these talents into strengths
are-
 Challenging Yourself – Undertaking challenging tasks
will help in pushing the boundaries and stepping out of
the comfort zone. This can be conducted by learning a
new skill, it will be better if an activity in which a
person is weak is chosen. This will help in learning
about humility and being humble is the key to empathy
(Gorbatov, Khapova and Lysova, 2018).
 Self-talking- It may sound strange but by self-talking

positively to yourself every now and then, can help a
person adapt the changes that are taking place in a much
better manner. This will also help in the long run by
making the individual very flexible and attaining high
level of adaptability.
 Deadlines are important – It is very important for
individuals to strengthen their responsibility skills and
this can be conducted if they are explained the
importance of deadlines and fulfilling them. This will
help them in making changes in their work routines and
complete work in advance will be their main focus
(Milovanovic, Baltazarevic and Milovanovic, 2015).
How can others see these
strengths as perceived
weaknesses?
(sometimes known as
basement)
Each person has a different opinion towards conducting their work and have
different perspectives on different values, strengths, and weaknesses. The others
can see these strengths as weaknesses only if they give more preference to other

strengths. As the strengths that have been identified are very important for the
personal and professional development of a person.
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.
The strengths that have been identified by me, have been selected with the future
approach as it will help in better development that will further help me in my
career options. The strengths empathy, adaptability, and responsibilities will help
me in the personal and professional development, no matters which field I
choose in the future.
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
Strong focus.
The zeal to keep improving.
High empathy skills.
Areas for Development
Less patience.
Easily affected by the failure.
Opportunities
The ability to learn fast.
The ability to complete work in the given deadline.
Threats
Spending too much time planning about

everything.
Late realization of mistakes.
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 have better time
I will dedicate
6hrs per module
for studying
I will dedicate three
Regularly follow up
with tutor
For this, I will require an
Focus and
Discipline
Discipline and
Next 3
months
Two months.

management skills, as I
spend too much time in the
planning process.
hours to planning, but
my aim will always be
to complete it in two
hours.
assistance from anyone who
will notify me at two hours
and will stop me from the
planning process at two and
a half hours.
prioritizing everything.