Personal and Professional Development Plan: Semester 1

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Personal & Professional Growth

Personal & Professional Growth
Executive Summary
The executive summary of this report is concerned with the professional & personal
improvement of a particular individual or a person. Moreover, the reports aim to enable the
learners to evaluate as well as develop a range of personal & professional competencies for
promoting future personal and development of career. Also, the report aims to develop the ability
of learners to manage, practice and organize a range of methods and strategies for the
improvement of an individual's performance regarding self-managed learning. Here, the report
uses a personal development plan by which an individual can determine his or her future
objectives and a timeline for achieving his or her future career development.
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Table of Contents
Introduction...............................................................................................................................................4
Task 1: Impact on self-managed learning on personal lifelong development.......................................5
1.1 Assess self-managed learning strategies...........................................................................................5
1.2 Strategies to develop lifelong personal and professional development............................................6
1.3 Benefits of self-managed learning to companies and employees......................................................7
Task 2: Requirements and criteria for professional and personal improvement.................................7
2.1 Assessing own current professional skills to meet the objectives of the company...........................7
2.2 Recognizing own development requirements and the activities.......................................................8
2.3 Identify improvement prospects to meet current and future company’s objective..........................9
2.4 Professional Development Plan.........................................................................................................9
Task 3: Reviewing and implementing professional and personal enhancement.................................10
3.1 Explanation of the activities and procedures essential for implementing the development strategy
...............................................................................................................................................................10
3.2 Carry out & document planned development activities..................................................................11
3.3 Critical reflection on own learning against the objectives set in the improvement plan.................11
3.4 Update the improvement plan based on assessment and feedback...............................................12
Task 4: Demonstrating the acquired transferable and interpersonal competencies..........................12
4.1 Strategies to solve work-based problems........................................................................................12
4.2 Communicate in the variability of styles and appropriate method at several levels.......................13
4.3 Application of effective time-management approaches..................................................................14
Conclusion................................................................................................................................................15
References................................................................................................................................................16
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Introduction
As we already know that the topic of this report is self-managed learning and its impact on the
personal and professional development of a person. Away by which an individual can manage
his or her learning is known as self-managed learning. If an organization can have a self-
managed programmer then the company will be benefited and they can accomplish their required
goals on a provided timeframe. No training sessions will be required for that. This particular
assignment described various self-managed learning strategies by which an individual can enter
into a professional career and achieve his or her professional dream. Besides that, the individual
needs to practice various organizational skills and competencies. Some portions of the report are
reflective and the reflective parts consist of the requirements and criteria for professional and
personal improvement.
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Task 1: Impact on self-managed learning on personal lifelong development
1.1 Assess self-managed learning strategies
An individual can follow various self-managed strategies such as seminars, group discussions,
social networking, conferences, meetings, and the internet. Some of the self-managed strategies
will be discussed here:
Social Networking: Today, social networking had become one of the most powerful media tool
used by individuals to upgrade themselves and develop their career (Munsch and Cortez, 2014).
Social networking websites like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and LinkedIn provides a
platform to the end user to promote and market their talents worldwide. Moreover, people use
these social networking websites to gain knowledge about their particular subject of interest.
Therefore, these social networking sites act as a great boon for self-managed learning. Social
media services can provide a powerful and available toolkit for highlighting and performing on
issues and causes the impact on the interest of youths and millennial.
Internet: Due to the emergence of advanced internet technologies, individuals are able to learn
new skills and strategies to develop their career. With the invention of Google, the concept of the
internet has been transformed by a million times. People can search for anything about their
career development and implements accordingly. Google provides a lot of books where the
individual can get help regarding his/her subject of interest (Sardegna, Lee and Kusey, 2017).
Thus, Google is helping individuals to have self-managed strategies for personal and
professional development. The Internet also helps individuals to get professional contacts of
people with whom they want to work in the future.
Conferences and Seminars: Conference and seminars are one of the most effective methods for
the self-development of individuals. Besides that, people who do not have proper communication
and decision-making competencies and who have public speaking phobia should engage
themselves in conferences and seminars (Kocovic et al., 2018). This involvement will help the
individuals to gain knowledge and strategies about how to communicate well with people
regarding any topic or business matters. Seminars also help the individuals to grab networking
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opportunities by which they can build new relationships with the professionals as well as collect
new contacts.
Group Discussions: In debates & group discussion, the individuals are allowed to speak on the
same topic and every individual gets a chance to put on their own perspectives. Moreover, it
provides different images of the same story. However, debates & team meetings groom the
personality and behavior of people and make them self-assured. Additionally, it helps the
individuals to learn the new skill of convincing others. Thus, it is a great boon for individuals to
reinforce their communication competencies (Bazan and Dugal, 2015).
1.2 Strategies to develop lifelong personal and professional development
An individual can develop a lifelong personal and professional progress with the help of two
approaches such as self-reflective training and SWOT analysis.
Self-Reflective Practice: It is also called the reflective practice. The self-reflective practice is
the capability of an individual to reflect on his/her own professional activities so as to involve
and engage him/her in a procedure of continuous self-development and learning. With the
implementation of reflective practice, one can learn professional experiences of their own rather
than formal learning and transfer of knowledge. An individual who is more concerned with
his/her self-reflective practice takes a conscious look at the experiences, responses, emotions,
and actions (van Velzen, 2015). By using this information, the individual develops his or her
professional career. Reflective practice provides a development opportunity for those in
leadership positions. Team management requires a subtle balance between individual technical
expertise & skills. Moreover, the reflective practice provides individuals who want to become
leaders with a prospect to disparagingly review what has been positive in the past and where
development can be finished.
SWOT Analysis: Self-improvement is an essential strategy for making yourself all the more
engaging customers and employers. It similarly helps support your mental self-view. People
apply a wide range of strategies to stand separated in this ocean of candidates. However, they
need to verify the top position, however it not as simple as it sounds. People regularly lead the
SWOT study. We all know that a SWOT analysis helps in identifying the strengths, weaknesses,
opportunities, and threats of an individual or a company. SWOT analysis helps an individual to
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develop personal and professional strategies and also helps them to accomplish their life or
business goals (Ivashchenko and Bykova, 2018). Moreover, the individual can determine and
identify his/her position in their way of achieving success. It also helps people or company to
measure the scopes of reaching the required objectives and goals. An individual can easily
identify his/her personality traits and preferences with the implementation of SWOT analysis.
This analysis also focuses on the abilities, competencies, capabilities, and skills of a particular
individual.
1.3 Benefits of self-managed learning to companies and employees
Appropriate self-managed learning of individual can have various benefits and these benefits are
important for individual career to the development and help him/her to meet the company's
objectives where he/she will work. Some of the benefits are described below:
 A self-managed development and learning help an individual to learn better about a
particular topic than those who depend completely on the mentors and coaches.
 An individual tends to retain as well as implements what he or she has learned
thoroughly.
 Moreover, a self-managed practice helps a person to increase its own confidence and
develops a plan under risky circumstances (Bourner, 2011).
 It also aids the individual to increase his or her ability and skills to set as well as define
measurable objectives.
 The self-managed practice also helps a person to identify and recognize his or her
strengths and weakness. After the identification process, the individual can work on
weakness and improve the strength in order to achieve organizational objectives.
 After a self-managed learning process, an individual can achieve an increase in
promotion in a particular organization. It helps an individual to develop new skills in the
organization which in turn helps in increasing motivation for work.
 It also helps in achieving the goals of the company to satisfy its customers. Moreover, a
competent manager is able to find out the requirements and queries of customers and
solve them accordingly (Parsloe and Leedham, 2010).
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Task 2: Requirements and criteria for professional and personal improvement
2.1 Assessing own current professional skills to meet the objectives of the company
At present, I have lots of competencies by which I can easily work for the fulfillment of the
organization's objectives. Some of my current competencies are described below:
Time Management Competencies: I am good at handling my time schedule and therefore I can
attend every class at the appropriate time. Besides that, I can finish my homework and my
assigned work on time. I do lots of planning in order to carry out my work within a fixed
deadline (Murray, 2010). Time management competencies help in reducing my stress level and I
can work out things on things on time. In the future, it will also improve my reputation in the
company because I will take less time in completing a project.
Teamwork Skills: Currently, I am good at handling team activities. I can help another member
of my team to get things easily done on a provided deadline. Moreover, teamwork skills help me
to foster creativity and learning among the team members. With the help of teamwork, I can
collaborate on a specific project that generates an interest in the knowledge that private work
usually lacks. I can also share innovations with the rest of my team and that excites employees
and nurtures both individual and team understanding (Gambhir et al., 2016).
Communication Skills: I believe that I am a good and efficient communicator and I am good at
making a very healthy conversation with the people. But I still need to make perfection on my
language competencies. I need to learn new languages so that I may not face any cultural barriers
in the workplace where I will work in the future. Besides that, communication skills help me to
build trust between me and my team members (Kehoe, 2011). I need to develop my public
speaking competencies.
Technology Competencies: Technically, I can handle computers and applications installed in it.
I have the skills to work with Microsoft Office. Besides that, I know how to code programming
languages since I have learned Java, C#, C, C++, and other object-oriented programming
languages. I have good social networking skills by which I can market the products of a
company (Ramdass and Zimmerman, 2011).
2.2 Recognizing own development requirements and the activities
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It is very significant for a person to identify his or her own development activities and
requirements. It will, in general, be improved by sharing in more conferences, seminars,
vocalization, team meetings as well as debates. This can moreover be improved by progressively
scrutinizing. This can be improved by examining books, paper and practicing to talk as you read.
I can similarly improve my team leading skills by taking up new managerial occupations and
accepting the risk to finish employments structure in a specific company (Bauer and Liou, 2018).
In the professional world, I need networking activities and skills which will guide me through a
layer of professional experience with the expertise. However, networking competencies will also
help me to meet new clients and fulfill the objective of the company. Team management
competencies can be selected by truly working in teams and venturing up and complete the work
on self-commitment. I can similarly get some specific skills which I am not beneficial in by
scrutinizing some particular books, doing down to business assignments, etc. Besides, it can
similarly be practiced through suitable instructional meetings.
2.3 Identify improvement prospects to meet current and future company’s objective
In order to meet the future and current requirements of the company, I have found out my own
development opportunities. In the market, lots of books and articles regarding individual skills
development are being retailed and I need to pick some books from there. However, these books
will also guide me to develop and improve my time management and communication skills.
Moreover, these books will guide me to improve and develop my technical competencies.
Various books like how to become a successful team leader are being retailed in the book
market. Apart from book shops, I need to take help from the internet (Michniuk, 2014). People
write a lot of blogs and posts online regarding the development of organizational and personal
skills. YouTube has thousands of online videos regarding personal and professional skill
development. By taking external references, I can improve my personal and professional skills
and meet the future and current objective of the organization.
2.4 Professional Development Plan
I can formulate an appropriate plan for the development of my professional career as
demonstrated by the recognized needs. Besides, I am planning to partake in a more striking
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measure of such activities where I can take more obligations to make the fundamental
developments and find the opportunity to get acquainted with these measurements. I will deal
with events alone and will proactively take an interest in the extracurricular activities. Here I
should need to take on some continuously enlightening capacity on different aptitudes like
management capacities in marketing. My plan from the current condition is to go further and
improve my technical capacities and management aptitudes. I furthermore need to improve my
time management capacities which will be valuable as a piece of my personality similarly as
expert life (Alpturk, 2015). To improve my time management aptitudes, I am planning to achieve
a regularly expanding number of activities and endeavor to compose my work as necessities
seem to be. I would share in more prominent management related employees like me. Besides, I
would scrutinize management related books where I can pick up capability with the capacities
and techniques to develop these aptitudes.
Task 3: Reviewing and implementing professional and personal enhancement
3.1 Explanation of the activities and procedures essential for implementing the
development strategy
In the case of professional enhancement, I need to follow some steps in order to meet
organizational objectives. At first, I need to consider the business goals. I must try to align the
development requirements with the organization’s business requirements. Moreover, I should
prepare myself to communicate well with my co-employees. This communication process
improves my confidence to deal with the professional world. The fundamental activity needed by
me for my professional and personal development is the implementation and preparation of a
personal development plan or PDP (Cottrell, 2015).
PDP is tabulated with the help of different plan, aims, and objectives. Moreover, a PDP table
helps a person to keep a track on his or her performance level. In the case of personal
enhancement, I need to go through lots of books and articles. While going through a lot of books
and articles, I have to make a plan for studying alone in a quiet environment. Besides, I will set
up my own goals for myself and monitor my performances based on the regular requirements of
the study process. These activities consist of discussions with office employees and friends,
training sessions, participating in meetings and conferences as well as constantly reading about
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the great leaders and their lifetime achievements and activities (Tasker, 2015). Moreover, the
procedures include participating in presentations, go to more syndicated projects of diverse
people, and participate in social undertakings to complete activities, take more obligations,
arranging big events as well management of people
3.2 Carry out & document planned development activities
My planned and documented development activities are listed below:
 Creating Regular To-Do List: It consists of discussions carried out on a weekly or
monthly basis so that I can keep a track of my To-Do List (Rimmer, 2018).
 Participating in training sessions: Monitoring the training that I do for attending the
program.
 Developing a strategy and time management table
These progressive undertakings are the objectives and purposes that I have to achieve.
Concerning each developmental undertaking, a technique is provided with the objective that the
checking and control track is being kept on it. As a result, it guides me in not simply keeping a
track on the point and target yet also the different philosophy that will screen its display and a
short time later getting another way to deal with accomplishing it. Besides, the improvement
practices as arranged can be accounted for and held onto as requirements are. This should be
conceivable on a period scale premise. So this should be workable for a 6 months reason
(Beausaert, Segers and Gijselaers, 2011). Here I will take the analysis from my buddies, partners,
and family to fathom if there was any improvement and if there are still some unclear zones to
tackle. In the accompanying and the latest month of the improvement plan, I will be doing the
improvements as shown by the information got an attempt to beat the deficiencies which were
still there. Thusly on a half-yearly reason, the advancement plan can be developed which will be
obliging to improve personal and professional talents which will be lucrative for them
correspondingly with respect to the relationship for which they are working or will work in
future.
3.3 Critical reflection on own learning against the objectives set in the improvement plan
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According to me, the planned activities regarding the improvement of personal development
have served its objectives. I think that I have accomplished the objectives set in my improvement
plan. Initially, I had planned time management skills and it has helped me to complete my
projects and assignments within a provided deadline. Moreover, the time management
competencies had also helped me to break the big task into smaller one (Jefferies, 2018). This
breaking process of my task had helped me to break my time and assign the small task within an
allocated time. On the other hand, I had also developed communication skill for the improvement
of my personal development plan. The improvement of communication skills had helped to
strengthen my relationship with university students and friends. Additionally, the communication
skills will help me to strengthen my relationship with the co-employees and other people from
the professional world. I have also studied my performance while performing the actions in my
development plan and have disapprovingly analyzed my performance and I have found out that
the self-learning activities have assisted to progress the skills which I was scheduled to improve
(Beausaert et al., 2013).
3.4 Update the improvement plan based on assessment and feedback
When we receive a lot of positive feedback from other people, a development plan can be said to
be successful. These positive feedbacks helps to get motivated so that we can further develop
action plans as well as accomplish organizational or personal objectives and goals that we set for
ourselves. Besides, when we are getting incredible analysis and comments from the others that
we have changed and emphatically than we further get impelled to achieve the rest focuses too.
However, they give the right assessment of the position and measurement of criticalness or
change that we should procure ourselves (August, 2018). Based on the feedback process, I have
from my friends and accomplices, I need to improve my social aptitudes and my communication
competencies. When we get good feedback on how and where we need to move and head on
then we get motivated to accomplish the rest of the goals. These can be improved by making
progress toward this way. In order to upgrade the deficiencies and improvement area discussed
over a huge amount of things should be conceivable. The most remarkable and feasible way is
independently directed learning. I can achieve the above skills by taking an interest in more
activities.
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