What a PDP Is For

Three situations, and they change what the plan needs to contain:

• At work, for yourself. Usually written around an appraisal, sometimes for a promotion you’re aiming at. The plan needs to connect to a role you want, not just to skills you’d enjoy having.
• At work, for someone else. A manager writing an individual development plan for a team member. Same structure, but the actions have to be things you can actually resource — a plan that commits your report to training you haven’t budgeted for wastes both your time.
• For a course or a professional body. Nursing, teaching, accountancy, engineering and many other fields require a documented plan with evidence. Here the format is often prescribed, so check what’s required before starting.

The common failure across all three is a plan written to satisfy a form. If nobody would notice its absence six months later, it wasn’t a plan — it was an exercise.

The Four Questions

Every useful PDP answers these, in order:

1. Where am I now? An honest assessment of current skills, experience and performance — including feedback from other people, since self-assessment alone is unreliable in both directions.
2. Where do I want to be? A specific role, level, or capability, with a rough timeframe. “More senior” isn’t a destination; “able to run a project of this size independently within eighteen months” is.
3. What’s the gap? The difference between the two, broken into specific capabilities. This is the section that does the work, and the one most plans skip.
4. How will I close it? Dated actions with evidence attached.

Skills Gap Analysis

The technique that turns “improve my leadership skills” into something you can act on. List the capabilities the target role needs, rate where you are now, rate where you need to be, and the difference is your priority order.

Three features make this worth doing. The ratings come from two people, not one — self-assessment alone is unreliable, and the conversation about where you disagree is often the most useful half hour of the process. Strengths are recorded too, because a plan that only lists deficiencies is demoralising and hides the capabilities you should be using more. And the gap column produces the priority order for you, so the plan isn’t built around whichever course happened to be available.

Personal Development Plan Example

Note the shape of it. Six actions, not sixteen — a plan with twenty items is a plan nobody completes. Each has a date and a piece of evidence, so “done” isn’t a matter of opinion. The support needed is stated explicitly, including the manager’s time, which is the resource most quietly assumed and least often given. And the type column shows that only one action is a training course — which is the subject of the next section.

Free Personal Development Plan Templates in MS Word

Each template below is editable in Word. Start with the skills gap — everything else follows from it.

The download button for this Personal Development Template is below.

Why Most Development Plans Produce No Development

Because they’re lists of courses.

The widely used 70:20:10 model describes where professional capability actually comes from: roughly 70% from doing the work — stretching assignments, unfamiliar tasks, real responsibility — 20% from other people through coaching, mentoring, observation and feedback, and 10% from formal training.

The proportions aren’t precise and shouldn’t be treated as arithmetic. The point they make is: a development plan consisting entirely of courses is drawing on the smallest of the three sources. Someone can attend every leadership course available and remain unable to run a difficult conversation, because that skill is built by having the conversations with someone experienced watching.

So when you write the actions, try to make most of them things you’ll do:

• 70 — on the job: take on a piece of work slightly beyond you, deputise for someone, run a project, join a working group, lead a meeting you’d usually attend.
• 20 — from others: shadow someone, ask a colleague to observe you and give feedback, find a mentor, sit in on conversations you’d normally be excluded from.
• 10 — formal: a course, a qualification, reading. Genuinely useful for knowledge you don’t have, and far less useful for behaviour you haven’t practised.

A quick test on a finished plan: if every action involves booking something, it will produce certificates rather than capability.

Writing Goals That Work

• Name the behaviour, not the quality. “Improve my leadership skills” can’t be started or finished. “Chair the monthly operations meeting from January and get written feedback from two attendees after three sessions” can.
• Attach evidence to every action. What will exist afterwards that didn’t before? A completed rota, two reports, feedback from a colleague, a certificate. Without it, review meetings become a discussion of how you feel it’s going.
• Six actions maximum. Development happens alongside a full job, and a plan with fifteen items is abandoned by February.
• Date each one, and spread the dates. Three things due in the same fortnight is a plan that fails in that fortnight.
• State the support you need — budget, someone’s time, permission, access. Actions requiring something nobody has agreed to supply don’t happen, and writing it down is usually what prompts the agreement.
• Connect it to something real. A role you want, a responsibility you’re taking on, a requirement of your profession. Development in the abstract loses to whatever is urgent this week.

Evidence and CPD

If your plan exists to satisfy a professional body — nursing revalidation, a CPD scheme, chartered status, teaching standards — the evidence requirements come first, not last.

Check three things before you write anything: what format the body requires (many publish their own template, and using yours creates work), how much activity you must record — usually expressed in hours, points or a number of activities — and what counts as evidence, since some schemes accept reflection while others require confirmation from a third party.

Then keep the evidence as you go rather than assembling it the week before submission. A folder with certificates, reflective notes written within a few days of the activity, and any feedback received is a great deal easier than reconstructing a year from memory. For course records, our certificate of completion templates and training certificates cover what providers should be issuing you — including the contact hours figure most CPD schemes ask for.

Reviewing It

• Quarterly, with dates set in advance. A plan reviewed at the next appraisal is a plan written for the appraisal.
• Review with your manager where the plan involves them. Half the actions in a typical PDP depend on someone else’s time or permission, and those are the ones that stall silently.
• Re-date rather than letting items expire. An action three months overdue with its original date tells you nothing; agree a new date or agree it isn’t happening.
• Add things. Opportunities appear that nobody could have planned for — a project, a departure, a secondment. A plan that only ever shrinks isn’t being used.
• Close actions with the evidence attached, so the completed plan is also your record of the year.
• Rewrite it annually. Roll forward what’s still relevant, drop what isn’t, and redo the skills gap — the target usually moves once you’ve closed the first set of gaps.

For the dated task list underneath the plan, our action plan templates work well alongside it.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a personal development plan?

A document setting out where you are now, what you want to be able to do, the gap between the two, and the dated actions that will close it — with evidence attached to each one.

What should a personal development plan include?

Your current role and target, a skills gap assessment, three to six development actions with dates and evidence, the support you need from others, and review dates set in advance.

How do I identify my skills gaps?

List the capabilities your target role needs, rate your current level and the required level on a scale of one to five, and the difference gives you the priority order. Get a second rating from your manager — the disagreements are the most useful part.

What is the 70:20:10 model?

The observation that professional capability comes roughly 70% from doing the work, 20% from other people through coaching and feedback, and 10% from formal training. It explains why a development plan made entirely of courses rarely changes anything.

What is the difference between a PDP and an IDP?

Very little in structure. A personal development plan is usually written by and for the individual; an individual development plan is typically created with a manager as part of a performance process. The IDP tends to include what the organization will provide.

How many goals should a development plan have?

Three to six actions across two or three development areas. Development happens alongside a full job, and longer plans get abandoned rather than completed.

How often should a PDP be reviewed?

Quarterly, with the dates fixed when the plan is written, and a full rewrite annually. Reviewing only at the next appraisal turns the plan into paperwork rather than a working document.

What evidence do I need for CPD?

It depends on your professional body — check what format they require, how much activity you must record, and whether reflection alone counts or third-party confirmation is needed. Collect it as you go; reconstructing a year from memory the week before submission is far harder.

Pete Smith

Pete Smith is a Business Management graduate and a passionate advocate for practical, accessible resources that empower professionals and entrepreneurs to succeed. With a strong foundation in organizational strategy and operational efficiency, Pete combines academic knowledge with real-world insights to simplify complex business processes. He is the creator behind a growing online platform dedicated to offering free, high-quality documents, templates, and actionable tips designed to save time and improve productivity.

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