WELF 1013 Professional Development Counselling and Psychology An

WELF 1013 Professional Development Counselling and Psychology An action plan

What is an action plan? A strategy that will help you clearly identify your objectives and goals as well as the steps you need to adopt in order to achieve them within a stipulated period of time. It is an integral part of personal and professional development.

Good action plans will have: Clear objectives Success criteria clearly defined Actions that need to be implemented Individual responsibility clearly identified Clear deadlines

Characteristics of a good action plan Be realistic about what can be achieved in the timeframe Clear objectives Relevant to your longer term aims Clearly worded, realistic and achievable Detail how you will know that you have achieved your goal Success criteria clearly defined Identify success criteria before determining actions Do not confuse success criteria with objectives Individual responsibility clearly identified Detail what is to be done and who will do it Identify if there are others who can support you Ensure actions are realistic and achievable with the available resources

Characteristics of a good action plan (cont’d) Actions that need to be implemented Think about space, time and financial requirements Think about the appropriateness of the resources you are planning to use Identify target dates for achievement: By when will you have completed the actions? Clear deadlines Ensure that target dates are realistic and manageable

Template for action plan

An example of an action plan

An example of a good action plan This could be improved by identifying the timeline for this action

An example of a weak action plan Student has not specified the end date for all goals whether short or long Student has not specified what a competitive GPA is Detailing how this would be done would have made this clearer Actions need to be measurable so it needs to be specified how they are going to do this Goals should be SMART: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time bound

Some common errors Students do not alter their goals as per the feedback they receive from their PPDP Actions are not measurable or specific It is not exactly clear how the actions will be reviewed Dates are left off reviews Goals do not align with the SMART classification