A GUIDE TO PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT PLANNING (A Professional Development template is provided at the end of this document) Many people plan their development, whether that is personal or professional, in a fairly haphazard and unstructured way. It is quite common to hear the comment: my plan s all in my head, I don t need to write it down or I look at the courses on offer and pick the one that sounds most appealing. There are a number of risks to these approaches which, although understandable in view of the busy lives most of us lead, mean that we do not focus on what is the most important of our needs or that we waste time re-learning things we already know a lot about in the first place. Whilst it may be re-assuring to listen to a presenter or practise a procedure and be able to assure ourselves confidently that the speaker or procedure is right, it would probably be a much better use of our valuable time if we focussed on something we could be better at or know more about. This is often brought home to people when an external agency (e.g. the GDC) sets learning requirements for them, but it would obviously be so much better if they had worked it out for themselves before getting to that stage. Effective development can only be achieved if we take the time to review and reflect on what we do already know or have and make an honest assessment on what it is that we need or want to achieve. This is equally true in our professional and personal lives, whether the aim is to extend our skills, review our career direction or to plan our work-life balance. The goals may be different and the topics may vary in importance to us, but the principles of effective planning both professionally and personally are basically the same. It is very difficult to carry out an effective planning process without a degree of reflection on what has gone before to place our plan in context and the creation of an action plan with specific and manageable goals to move us forward. We also need to set benchmarks to check whether our plan is on track and whether anything has changed which would affect our plan. To achieve this, we need two givens - taking the time to reflect and then writing down the resulting analysis and action. Most of us are really unlikely to be able to hold all the relevant information in our heads, with the result that goals will slip or not be achieved and opportunities to maximise our development will be missed. This guidance is designed to help you move to a formal approach to planning your professional development if this is not already your style and, for those who instinctively write down their plans and goals, to help you continue to this in an effective way. The basic principles can also apply to creating a personal development plan for almost any situation. Let s start with a few basic definitions: Plan (noun) 1. A scheme for achieving an objective. 2. A method of doing something that is worked out, usually in some detail before it is begun, and that may be written down in some form.
Personal Development According to the Institute of Management, Personal Development is a lifelong process of nurturing, shaping and improving an individual s skills, knowledge and interests to ensure their maximum effectiveness and adaptability. This is precisely what we are asked to do as a member of the dental profession and leads to the concept of Planned Learning The General Dental Council is very clear about what this means to us as dental professionals in its CPD Guidance: Making good CPD decisions We expect that you will make decisions about the CPD you choose to do to meet our requirements by carefully considering Standards for the Dental Team, based on your scope of practice. The Standards are available on our website at www.gdc-uk.org You are highly recommended to use a Personal Development Plan (PDP), to help you make good CPD decisions, and review it regularly, ideally with an appropriate colleague. Sample plans can be provided by the postgraduate deaneries and some employers and professional associations. A PDP will enable you to decide in advance what CPD can most effectively advance your professional development and is relevant to your practice or intended practice. Holding and maintaining a PDP will also enable you to identify your learning needs and consider them in a structured way. This should be in relation to your scope of practice and also to the work you do; the team in which you work; the patients you treat; and your contribution to safe and good quality dental care in the UK. A PDP will also help you to prioritise your CPD activity, and set out your actions to meet each need during your CPD cycle. We also recommend you make time to reflect individually or with others on what you have learned following each CPD activity, what you will do the same or differently as a result and whether your on-going learning needs have changed GDC: Continuing Professional Development for dental professionals, September 2013 As early as 2001 this model was already being defined as underpinning effective CPD by the NHS All NHS staff should have a personal development plan (PDP) which supports their learning needs on an individual basis (Working Together - Learning Together, Department of Health, November 2001) which expanded a statement from 1999 that for CPD to be effective it must be focussed on a practitioner s own learning needs and the continuing development of the services that they provide within their [practice] (Continuing Professional Development - Quality in the New NHS, 1999). So there is nothing new in the PDP approach to future learning! When setting out on your own planning exercise, it is also important to remember that, from now on, any future learning to maintain and develop your skills is your responsibility and yours alone. Most of the time, no one is going to tell you what you should be learning (unless you are in trouble or your patients are going elsewhere). There is the key difference between the Education you received at University and, to some extent in Foundation Training, when most of what you were taught was decided by others, and Learning which is largely self-directed and self-identified and set by you as a professional. In summary: Education is what you are given Learning is what you choose for yourself
Personal Development Planning is an aid to making the latter truly effective and of value. In taking control of our learning it is worth remembering that we tend to choose courses in areas where we are already proficient and in our busy professional and personal lives we need to prioritise our needs by identifying those things which we must have (essential); should have (highly desirable); personally satisfying (really want to do); nice (good to do when there is time); and don t need (will never use). The Personal and Professional Development Planning Process The Personal and Professional Development Planning Process (PPDP) can be broken down into the following five stages: 1. Analysing the learning needs - development areas and objectives 2. Action planning - actions required to achieve the above and by what date 3. Implementing the actions 4. Evaluating the outcomes - evidence of participation and learning 5. Logging the activity and learning - on a CPD record (e.g. GDC website) Learning Needs Analysis This is the reflective bit! Selection of topic What is the area that I need to develop? This may relate to clinical, management, communication or personal topics What, precisely, is the objective that I want to achieve? E.g. use a new technique or material; improve infection control process; reduce the number of patient complaints; improve work life balance Action Planning When do I need to complete the actions? This should be sufficiently specific to ensure that the action is carried out. If the answer is about next year or ongoing, then the objective is not defined enough and should be changed. Action plans are much harder to write than appears at first sight. If the objective is too complex or poorly defined, it will be hard to know where to begin or when it has been completed. A well-structured action plan breaks the actions down, the main objective into bite-sized chunks which can either take place at the same time or, more commonly, one action achieved will lead on to the next action within the overall objective. The key to producing do-able actions is the setting of what are known as SMART objectives. This acronym describes a set of tests which one can run through to ensure that the wording (and therefore the action) is robust. SMART covers five areas that any objective should be able meet: Specific what precisely is the purpose of the objective? For example, Be better at endodontics is too vague, but Be able to treat patients using rotary endodontic instruments within the next three months has a clear outcome. (You would normally set an actual date, e.g. by 31 March 2015, if you were writing you objective in, say, December 2014) Measurable how will I know when the objective has been completed? Using the above example, you will know when you have carried out the action because you will be using the technique to treat a patient.
Achievable is the objective something which I can actually do? You would need to be able to find the relevant training within three months. If this meant cancelling patients you might want to choose a longer timescale. Relevant is the objective relevant to my need? If you practice is unlikely to buy a rotary endodontic system in the next twelve months there is little need to undertake the training now. Time limited when will I have completed the objective by? If you don t set a time limit, there is a good chance that you will put off the objective and realise when you review your plan (and you should at least in six months!) that nothing has happened. Implementing the Actions Having set your SMART objective, you will still need to locate and experience the training and make arrangements to implement your new skills in practice. You may wish to delegate some of this to a third party (dental nurse or receptionist) but you will need to tell them that you are this will be the first action in your plan! Gathering the Evidence of Learning and Evaluating the Outcomes The Learning Continuum Obtaining the learning is the first step, but you still need to ensure that what you have achieved is what you set out to do and that the learning has met your needs. If you were planning to attend a verifiable CPD course, you will have, hopefully, checked that the aims and learning outcomes for the course were relevant to your requirements. You should ensure that you keep a record of your learning produced by the provider and it may be worth keeping any course notes and/or hand-outs, both as evidence if required and to remind you of what the learning was about to make sure you don t book the same event next year! Once you have attended, you will want to be sure that the course met your objective, otherwise you might, for example, need to find another course on the topic before you are confident you can treat a patient using the technique. This may also mean that you may have to reset your original objective if it was unrealistic. You may also find that, by attending the course, you become aware of other related learning needs associated with the topic. A PDP should be a live document and you would then return to it to add a further objective based on your new knowledge. Logging the activity and learning Logging any educational activity is always a sensible idea, whether it is a course, an on-line module, journal reading or other activity, not only so that you have a record for the GDC or other body if requested by them, but also to make sure that you build a record of broad-based learning, both by topic and delivery method, for your personal benefit. This might lead you to deliberately re-visit a learning episode for a particular purpose (perhaps because you know a particular technique has changed slightly) which you will have, of course, identified through your ongoing PDP process! Part of the logging process should include a written reflection on what has been learned and how the learning has been applied. This is both useful to check your understanding of what you have learned and can also provide useful feedback to the course provider for the future development of the course. You may also want to check your new learning with a colleague who is already experienced in the topic. There is evidence that peer feedback is a very good way of embedding and reinforcing learning. A well-constructed PDP portfolio will not only include the plan but also a reflective commentary on both the learning and the process by which it was obtained.
The nuts and bolts of what you need to record so that you can provide evidence to the GDC or other body if requested should include, as a minimum: Your GDC number; the type of activity; the date the learning was undertaken; the provider of the learning; the aims and outcomes of the learning; the number of CPD hours; and, where applicable, the title of the course and its venue. However, a really useful PDP will include a great deal more than this, as described above. Malcolm Smith Updated March 2014
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT PLAN Name: Date: Scheme: 1. Development Area and Objective Action(s) Required Target Date Evidence Needed To Show Achievement Actual Completion Date 2. 3. Signed: (Foundation Dentist) Please photocopy this sheet if further Development Areas and Objectives are to be added.