Question

Professional development plans are commonly used in management. There are many ways to craft development plans as you will know, 360 degree feedback, various psychometric tests, inventories etc. You may have already done a personal development plan as part of your course (e.g. for 7MG001).

This PDP is different and focuses on your development and goals as a manager – hence this is a professional development plan. The purpose is to relate the academic content of the module to your professional (managerial) goals. More specifically, in the context of this module, it is only based around the “how do you fit the design” series of tests (don’t use any other tests, inventories such as Belbin etc).

To help you to reflect and craft your PDP it will be necessary to complete the “How Do You Fit the Design” self-assessment exercises included in each chapter of your textbook (Daft, 2015) and incorporate your reflection on these self-assessments into your PDP.

As with the project, the PDP will be incrementally developed as soon as you begin the module over the course of the 4-5 weeks. The tests are not specifically related to the chapters content so can be taken as early as possible because they relate to how you currently are.

You will craft interim components (which you may be asked to present or discuss in some form during the seminars).

The PDP will have following main sections

1 – Introduction (up 500-750 words on critical evaluation of professional development plans)

2 – A critical reflection of what the self-tests are showing (circa 1500 words). Split this into 2 sub-sections. A reflection on how the various tests holistically have been informative in your understanding of you as a manager, and then something more focused on the areas for development that will be included in the action plan.

The action plan too needs to show thought having gone into it. Your tutor will be looking to see how reflective and realistic it is, how realistic and appropriate the development is, and how well it is presented (ie professionally laid out etc).  You are advised to have one short (8-12 months), medium (12-24 months) and long term (2 years +) goals and their development.

The action plan is to be presented in a table format, with 3-4 columns for above areas. Use portrait paper format and smaller size font so that you capture everything on 1 page.

Solution:

Introduction

The business environment is characterized by a constant external and internal business environment that is under a constant change. In this regard, to leverage on the business environment competitive advantage, it is instrumental to participate in continuous learning and development.  According to Greenan (2016), for the sake of stimulating the employees in undertaking learning and development activities, organisations utilize PDPs as a strategic tool in their operations. The strategic tool is used in ensuring that they are significantly popular in the modern business environment as a consequence of the increased demand for the staff in becoming more adaptable and flexible in all their activities. Adopting the definition of Beausaert et al. (2013), PDP is an assessment tool integrated into a significant assessment cycle of development and performance reviews. From this definition, the PDP can be viewed as being reflective and forward-oriented since it is involved in gathering information on the development which has already been implemented. It is equally involved in ensuring an improved further plan development either based on the reflection or the intent of transitioning in a distinct direction.

In order to actively adopt the use of PDP in a real organisation context, the Janssen et al. (2013) PDP characteristics can be taken into account. One of the characteristics is that it generates an overview of what has happened in the past and indicating the overall plans for the future, it is inclusive of the employee consultation with the line manager and used as a foundation for different conversations with the line manager in providing the employee with prompt feedback for stimulating the reflection and serving as a strategic decision-making tool. From these characteristics, the PDP can be used in formative and summative uses. The formative use is aimed at promoting the existence of self-directed learning and as a strategy of promoting the level of performance improvements. The identified distinctions are aimed at providing two distinct approaches of implementation which are either voluntary or mandatory.  For the voluntary, this is an individual effort that is aimed at privately correcting the mistakes of an individual and as such thinking critically. For the mandatory PDP, this is a phenomenon where an individual participates in the process with an aim of reviewing their performance and hence dictating their career progression. The critics of the PDP have argued that the personal nature of the concept delineates it from the real organizational strategy that should primarily form the area of focus. It is equally short-term-oriented in terms of its scope and focus area.  Further, the decision to focus on self-development in PDP is identified as an approach of moving away from the organisation development that is more holistic and detailed.  Despite the criticism, it is broadly adopted as a critical segment of the organizational performance management process hence improving the overall relevance.

2.0 Critical Reflection

2.1 Reflections on the Different Tests Informative to the Manager

In the evolution of style questionnaire, as a manager, I view the world in the human resource frame, political frame, and structural frame in that order. In regard to the human resource frame, I see the world as being inclusive of organisation with people and managers emphasizing on the support, empowerment, and belonging. Further, for the political frame, I view the world as a competition of scarce resources in achieving their goals with the manager emphasizing on building an agreement among the distinct groups. In different instances, I have found myself integrating our organisation information in the external …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….Please contact us to receive guidance, support and tutorial services on this assessment

Email address: rankedtutorials@gmail.com