Individual Development Plans: Examples, Template and How to Write One
An individual development plan (IDP) is a written plan for building the skills, abilities and knowledge a person needs for their current role or a future one, with the actions they will take, the support they will use and the way progress will be checked. It is owned by the individual and shaped with their manager, and in the organizations we work with it is the working document behind most performance support and development conversations, whether the organization calls it an IDP, an employee development plan or a personal development plan. This guide covers what an individual development plan is and is not, what a good one contains, how to write one, three examples, our printable development plan form and, for talent development professionals, how to build individual development planning into an organization so that the plans get used.
If you are writing your own plan or helping a direct report write one, the first half of this page is for you. If you are responsible for development planning across an organization, the section on building the process is toward the end.
What is an individual development plan?
Recently, we were working with a client to define content to be included in a front-line leadership training program. Surprisingly, we discovered that we did not have a common definition of individual development plans. For the client, an IDP meant a specific plan to improve performance, usually because the individual was not meeting performance goals. For us, individual development plans are the output of creating specific plans for development of key skills and abilities, often for a future role.
This got us thinking. How do others define individual development planning? We did a quick survey of other clients, and here are some of the ways clients define an IDP:
- From a global brand: Individual Development Plans (IDPs) are a self-motivated effort targeted to assist you in obtaining your personal and professional career goals while meeting our organizational goals.
- From a biotech organization: Development plans are the means to ensure consistently high individual performance through continuous learning.
- From a financial services organization: Individual development plans are documented efforts individuals make to leverage strengths and address areas of need in employee growth.
What seemed common for those we surveyed was a desire to follow the 70-20-10 approach to development, with some variation of 70% of development coming from on-the-job activities, 20% from learning from others and 10% from formal training [1]. The other thing the definitions have in common is worth stating plainly: an IDP is a development tool, not a performance improvement plan. A performance improvement plan documents a gap against the current role's standards and the consequences of not closing it. A development plan looks forward, is usually voluntary and is most often about the next role or a broader one.
What individual development plans include
We also were able to take a look at the contents of clients' development plans and found that most contained these elements:
- Demographic information about the current role.
- A listing of strengths, sometimes gathered through connected assessments or performance reviews.
- A listing of development needs, sometimes with a priority included.
- A listing of development activities. Surprisingly, most of these were from the 10%, or formal learning, rather than the on-the-job experiences the organizations said they wanted.
- Timing, although many did not include timing or other S-M-A-R-T based goals in the planning.
- Feedback and monitoring notes, someplace to track progress and report on it.
Our own example development plan form organizes those elements into four questions, and the prompts printed beside each question do a great deal of the work:
| Section of the Plan | What It Captures | The Prompt That Helps |
|---|---|---|
| Who is involved | The associate, the manager or supervisor and, where there is one, the coach, with contact details. | Listing the coach on the form makes the support real rather than assumed. |
| What is the focus of this development plan? | The competency area or skill the plan is about. | A list of competency areas to choose from, such as develops a team, drives change, decision making, builds trust, interpersonal influence and communicates with impact. |
| What specifically do you want to accomplish? | The observable result, in the person's own words. | A list of action verbs (build, deliver, demonstrate, lead, negotiate, present, reduce, streamline and more) so that the goal starts with a verb rather than a wish. |
| What actions will you take, and what resources will you need? | Up to five actions, each paired with the resource or support it depends on. | A resources list that runs well beyond training: coaching discussions, cross training, journaling, a mentor, peer networks, projects, professional organizations, shadowing experts, volunteer experiences, time and budget. |
| How will you measure and/or track results? | The evidence the person and the manager agree to look for. | Four measurement areas: quantity, quality, time and cost. |
Keep in mind that the form is deliberately short. A plan that fits on two pages is far more likely to be followed than a lengthier version.
Before you write: thinking prompts for your own development
Development planning is not always an easy process. Especially in self-directed situations, individuals have difficulty knowing what to develop, how best to develop it and who to ask for support. We created a set of thinking prompts for that moment, and we suggest working through a few of them before opening the form. Here is a selection; the full set is in the printable Thinking Prompts for Your Own Development:
What you will develop
- Think about a recent learning experience. Which skills were easiest to put into practice, and which were most difficult? What made the difficult ones difficult: remembering the steps, using the skill in your own words or applying it to your own situation?
- What about your business environment is changing quickly or becoming more complex, such as technology, products, clients or competitors? What one thing could you learn more about in order to address it?
- What requests have you heard from employees, peers, other organizations and customers? What skills, knowledge or abilities would you need in order to answer them?
- In which areas do others come to you for input and advice? Strengths belong in a plan too.
- As you look at people you admire, what qualities, skills, knowledge and networks do they have that you would like to build?
How you build capability and momentum
- Recall a time you felt proud of using something you had learned. How did you learn it: a formal course, reading, a mentor or coach, trial and error?
- When you want to figure something out, what do you do first, second and never?
- What learning resources already exist in your organization, in your profession's journals and networks or at your local library, and how many of them have you used?
Who can support your development
- Who do you go to when you need help, and how do they help you?
- If you wanted to know how you are perceived, who would you ask? Who would you ask to evaluate your skills anonymously?
- Who comes to mind as a mentor or coach? Is there a talent development or training group in your organization whose expertise you can draw on?
The answers to the first group become the focus of the plan, the second group shapes the actions and the third fills in the resources and support.
How to write an individual development plan
Here is the sequence we use with coachees and participants, and that we teach managers to use with their direct reports:
- Start with the role and the direction. Is the plan about being more effective in the current role, preparing for a specific next role or building a broader capability such as influence? The answer shapes content of the plan.
- Gather input before choosing a focus. Performance reviews, assessments such as a 360-degree or style inventory, feedback from the manager and the person's own view of their strengths all belong in the conversation. Strengths matter as much as gaps; many of the best plans build on a strength the next role will need more of.
- Choose one or two development needs, not six. Plans with many goals tend to lose focus and rarely finish. If the input surfaced several needs, rank them and put the rest in a note for the next plan.
- Write the accomplishment as something observable. 'Lead the quarterly business review for my region by the third quarter, with the finance and operations updates delivered by my team leads' gives you something to measure. The action verbs on the form help with this step. Consider using your company-approved AI tool to help you draft actions.
- Choose actions from more than one type of learning. For each need, we suggest at least one on-the-job experience, one way of learning from others and, where it fits, one formal option; our guide to 20 ways to develop skills and knowledge is a quick reference for this step. Be sure the experiences are real ones with names and dates, such as a project, a stretch assignment or a customer meeting to shadow.
- Identify the resources and the support. Every action needs the resource it depends on, and some need a person: the manager who will delegate the project, the expert who will be shadowed, the coach who will debrief it. Time is a resource too, and the plan should specify where the actions will fit into the business cadence.
- Decide how progress will be measured. Use the four measurement areas on the form (quantity, quality, time and cost) and agree on the evidence you expect to see, such as a presentation delivered, a process documented or an error rate reduced.
- Set the timing and the check-ins. Most plans run six to twelve months. A 30-minute review every six to eight weeks keeps a plan alive.
- Sign it and calendar it. The signatures on the form are not a formality. They record that the manager has agreed to the time and the support, which is where plans can often fail.
Individual development plan examples
Here are three employee development plan examples of the kind we see, with details changed. Each follows the four questions on the form:
Example 1: a first-line supervisor building a team
| Plan Element | Entry |
|---|---|
| Focus | Develops a team; delegation. |
| What specifically do you want to accomplish? | Delegate the weekly production scheduling to two team leads by the end of the second quarter, with quality and on-time measures held at current levels. |
| Actions and resources | Complete the Management Essentials delegation module and apply it to the scheduling handoff (internal program). Shadow the department manager in two planning meetings (time, manager). Hold a weekly 20-minute coaching conversation with each team lead for eight weeks (coaching discussions). Debrief the first month with my manager (coaching discussions). |
| Measure | Time: scheduling handed off by the target date. Quality: on-time and quality measures unchanged for the following quarter. Quantity: two team leads independently running the schedule. |
Example 2: an individual contributor preparing to lead projects
| Plan Element | Entry |
|---|---|
| Focus | Interpersonal influence; builds business partnerships. |
| What specifically do you want to accomplish? | Lead a cross-functional project with members from three departments through to recommendations, without formal authority over the team, within nine months. |
| Actions and resources | Complete an Interaction Style inventory and debrief it with a coach (coaching discussions). Ask two experienced project leaders for feedforward on running meetings with peers (peer networks). Take on the project as the stretch assignment, with my manager as sponsor (projects, time). Join the internal project management community (professional organizations). |
| Measure | Time: recommendations delivered by the agreed date. Quality: sponsor and team member ratings of the meetings. Quantity: number of decisions reached without escalation. |
Example 3: a mid-level manager who presents to executives
| Plan Element | Entry |
|---|---|
| Focus | Communicates with impact. |
| What specifically do you want to accomplish? | Present the annual plan to the executive team in ten minutes with a clear recommendation, and receive a decision in the meeting rather than a request for more information. |
| Actions and resources | Attend an executive communication workshop (external training program). Rehearse each of the next three executive presentations with a peer and ask for two suggestions each time (role playing, peer networks). Observe two presentations by leaders who get decisions in the room and note what they do (shadowing experts). Keep a short journal after each presentation (journaling). |
| Measure | Quality: decisions reached in the meeting for three consecutive presentations. Time: presentations kept to ten minutes. Feedback from my manager after each one. |
Two things are worth noticing across the examples. Formal training appears once in each plan and never on its own, and every action identifies stakeholders, a resource or a date.
Building the plan in your HRIS or with an AI assistant
Most organizations now capture development plans in an HRIS or talent module rather than on paper, and many individuals draft with an AI assistant first. Both work well when the inputs are specific. Whatever the tool, a plan needs the same six elements described above, and the quality of what goes in determines the quality of what comes out.
What to have ready before you open the form or write the prompt:
- The role description and the two or three competencies or behaviors the plan will focus on.
- Performance data or feedback that points to the need, such as appraisal comments, 360-degree results or a style inventory.
- The person's aspirations and the direction of the role over the next one to two years.
- The development options available in the organization, using a list such as our 20 ways to develop skills and knowledge.
A prompt that tends to work: "Using this role description, these two competencies and this feedback, draft three development actions for each competency, drawing from on-the-job experience, learning from others and formal learning. For each action, propose a real situation, a resource, a date and the evidence that would show it is done." Review the draft against the six elements, replace anything generic with a situation from the person's actual work and enter the result in the HRIS where the manager can see it. For organizations without a system, the PPS example development plan form is a two-page template with the fields in a workable order.
Building individual development planning into your organization
For those of us in talent development roles, individual development plans can guide us as we conduct needs assessments and structure and sequence learning. Read across enough plans and the patterns feed the organization's annual learning and development plan. Aside from simply asking about needs, taking a read through IDPs gives us insights into the patterns of development needs present in our organizations. Additionally, many HRIS systems that include development planning modules will do the heavy lifting of analysis for trends. The issue we see clients run into in using these systems is that often the leaders and individuals who are entering the plans are not specific, actionable and detailed enough. As always, quality in affects quality out.
A few practices make the difference between plans that are written once and plans that get used:
- Agree a definition first. As our client conversation showed, 'development plan' can mean a remediation document to one group and a growth tool to another. Publish the definition, keep the performance improvement process separate and name the plans accordingly.
- Decide who owns the plan. In our experience the individual should own it, the manager should agree to the time and support and the talent development team should own the process, the form and the aggregate view.
- Tie planning to a moment. Plans written right after a performance review, an assessment debrief, a promotion or the first 90 days of a new role get done; plans requested 'by the end of the quarter' with no trigger mostly do not.
- Equip managers to hold the conversation. Development planning is one of the core performance conversations, and new managers in particular need a process for it and a template they can use in the room.
- Keep the documentation short and the list of development options long. Two pages of plan, backed by a wide list of development options, produces better plans than a long form with a narrow list.
- Build in the check-in. Whatever system holds the plan, put the six-to-eight-week review on the calendar when the plan is signed, and have managers of managers ask about it.
- Use the aggregate. Reading across a cohort's plans shows where the organization's development needs cluster, which is often better input to next year's programs and budget than a survey.
Organizations without internal talent development support can do this with a brief structured online form, a menu of development options and a calendar reminder. Where there is more capacity, a coach or an internal facilitator who helps a cohort write plans together, with a style inventory or 360-degree feedback as the input, produces plans that are noticeably more specific.
Nearly every learning engagement we design includes some individual development planning as part of the journey. We know that learning in formal ways is only one part of development, and creating a plan that outlines how to sustain and deepen knowledge, skill and application is ideal to include in current development engagements. We encourage participants to draft ideas before feeding into their preferred AI tool. The reason for this is two-fold: first, it helps individuals to think about their areas of need and opportunities to further develop. We believe that self-knowledge and self-initiation of development is a critical skill for leaders and others to develop. In organizations with much ambiguity, change and volatility, those who can adapt and unlearn and relearn are crucial for organizational success. The second reason is that we have experienced AI-only development plans that deliver the same, exact actions to groups of 20+ participants, who are not in the same role and who didn't have the same development needs. The technology is a great support, but is evolving.
Measuring whether development planning is working does not need to be complicated. Here are a few indicators we look at:
- The share of plans that include on-the-job and learning-from-others actions, not only formal training.
- The share of actions completed by the plan's end date.
- Check-ins held on schedule.
- Internal moves and promotions among people whose plans identified a next role.
- What participants say a year later about which actions built a skill.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between an individual development plan and a performance improvement plan?
A performance improvement plan documents a gap against the standards of the current role, the actions required to close it and what happens if it is not closed; it is usually initiated by the manager. An individual development plan is forward-looking, usually voluntary and about growth in the current role or readiness for the next one; it is owned by the individual. Organizations that let the two blur find that people avoid development planning.
How many goals should an individual development plan have?
One or two, each with three to five actions drawn from more than one type of learning. Plans with more goals than that tend to lose focus, and the actions compete with the person's regular responsibilities.
Who writes an individual development plan?
The individual writes it, with input from their manager and, where available, a coach. The manager's part is to agree the focus, provide the experiences and resources the plan depends on and hold the check-ins. Talent development owns the structure and the process rather than the plans themselves.
How often should an individual development plan be reviewed?
A short check-in every six to eight weeks and a fuller review at six and twelve months, or whenever the person's role changes. Plans that are only opened at appraisal time rarely progress.
What is an example of an individual development plan goal?
'Delegate the weekly production scheduling to two team leads by the end of the second quarter, with quality and on-time measures held at current levels.' It names the behavior, the people, the date and the evidence. 'Become a better delegator' is too generic to be useful in building skill.
Is an employee development plan the same as an individual development plan?
In most organizations, yes. Employee development plan, individual development plan and personal development plan describe the same document: a plan owned by the individual for building skills for the current or next role. The name matters less than the definition; what does need to stay separate, in name and in process, is the performance improvement plan.
Do you need individual development plan software?
No. Most of the plans we see that get used live in a simple document stored where the manager and the individual can both find it. Software helps when an organization wants to read across thousands of plans for needs assessment; it does not always make an individual plan better.
Where to start
If you are writing a plan, download your organization's structured form (if available), choose one focus and write the accomplishment before you think about courses. If you are responsible for development planning across an organization, start by publishing examples of strong development plans and provide individuals and managers curated options for development. We help clients design development planning processes, train managers to hold the conversation and read across plans to shape their programs; reach out if that would be useful.
References
- McCall, M. W., Lombardo, M. M. and Morrison, A. M. (1988). The Lessons of Experience: How Successful Executives Develop on the Job. Lexington Books. The 70-20-10 model of development grew out of this research.
