Shaun William Marais Shaun William Marais

Creating a personal development plan

In the next 5 years, we will continue to witness the impact of technological advances and the integration of artificial intelligence into the workplace. New product developments, technological advances, and the constant changing nature of work will continue to require the employee to keep their skills and knowledge up to date. 

The sources of development in the workplace

The 70/20/10 model of learning and development is often adopted as a popular approach to learning. The model originated from a 1996 self-response survey that asked ~200 executives how they thought they learned and proposes that: 

  1. 70% of our development occurs via challenging assignments
  2. 20% of development comes from relationships
  3. 10% of development comes from formal learning 

It’s important to note that Alan Clardy examined the 70/20/10 model and found that the model’s validity is weak due to inconsistent definitions, methodological flaws, and a lack of rigorous evidence. The suggestion from this study is that the influence of formal learning should be upweighted (Clardy, 2018). 

A revised version of the above is the 55/25/20 model, which re-weights each category as per below and may be referred to as blended learning (Yogata, 2024):

  1. Experiential learning (55%)
  2. Social learning (25%)
  3. Formal learning (20%)

Crafting a development plan

Every day is a development opportunity, and it is helpful to reflect on where you are, where you want to go, and what to do to get there (Fesher, n.d.). 

To build a development plan, reflect on the following questions as a general guide: 

  1. What are your major career accomplishments? 
  2. What is your area of expertise? 
  3. What are your strengths and weaknesses?
  4. What are your career aspirations for your current and future roles? 
  5. What will the organisation need in the future? Anticipate how the job market will change. 
  6. Reflect on how you can transform weaknesses while maintaining strengths. 
  7. Identify your development priorities. 
  8. Write down SMART development goals. 

Reflecting on my 2024 learning accomplishments

I love stacked learning and am committed to my own personal project of lifelong learning. Here is what I achieved in 2024. 

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (Coursera):

  1. Financial Accounting: Advanced Topics
  2. Corporate Finance II: Financing Investments and Managing Risk
  3. Financial Management Capstone
  4. Leading Teams: Developing as a Leader
  5. Leading Teams: Building Effective Team Cultures
  6. Designing the Organization
  7. Managing the Organization
  8. Business Strategy

References: 

Shaun

Curious about the world and fascinated by human behaviour.