It’s that time of the year – Individual Development Plan time. Your agency may not use that word but you probably do it. The time you require each individual to create their training plan they hope to accomplish in 2014.
So here’s my five tips to create a great training plan (individual development plan):
1) Make It About Your Office – It’s easy to make your IDP about you and your career. But in the end, you need to think through your boss’s lens – what does s/he care about? How is this training going to make this office better? A more productive employee for my boss?
2) Leverage Online Training – Times are tight. Training budgets are shrinking. It’s a great time to add free online training to your IDP mix. There’s plenty of online training that offers real CPE credits and tactically helps you do your job better. From our GovLoop training (yes biased – we offer lots of free training – check out here) to great training at Digital Government University or MOOCS like Coursera, make sure to add these to your IDP. These are real trainings that count.
3) Ask Your Peers – Ask your colleagues, friends, and bosses – what’s the most useful training you’ve ever been to? And add that to your IDP. It’s not complicated but often we fail to ask others. We all remember that one training experience you’d go back to in a heart beat – find which one that is amongst your peers.
4) Invest in the Best – I’m obviously a huge fan of online training but I admit, there’s nothing better than a world-class in-person event. With budgets tight, you shouldn’t be going to just “okay” in-person training that could be done online. You need that amazing experience – so find that one event for you that’s a must-have. If you are a rising leader, maybe that’s the Next Gen Training Summit. If a local webmaster, maybe it’s NAGW’s annual gathering.
5) Want more? Make sure to sign up for our free “How to Create an IDP Training”
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Picture courtesy of Flickr – Luke-rative