How to: Plan for your Professional Development

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Steven Covey called this "Sharpen the Saw" in hisSeven Habits of Highly Effective People.  As a working PM (or a professional in any field) you need to participate in life-long learning.  This means that you must have and execute a plan to make yourself better, more valuable, and more competitive.

Your professional development plan can be a simple list.  You may be pursuing a degree, certification, or specific skill.  The point is - have a plan!

Here is my current plan:

• COMPLETED (Yeah!)
• MBA
• PMP
• CC (Toastmasters Competent Communicator)
• Maintenance Required
• PMP - 60 PDUs before 11/4/2015 (Done :))
• In Progress
• Agile Certified Practicianor (PMI-ACP)  Target Completion 1/2014
• Toastmasters Advanced Communicator Bronze (ACB) Target Completion 4/2014
• Desired (Later)
• Six Sigma Black Belt
• ITIL Foundation

That is my plan, as of today, where is yours?

Three Reasons to have a published professional development plan:

1. Celebration - Looking at your accomplishments to date is fun and provides positive energy
2. Motivation - In today's gamified world, something as simple as a todo list where you can mark accomplishments complete is very motivational.  Go a step further by awarding yourself gold stars or framing certificates and hanging them on your wall (phisical or virtual)
3. Reinforcement - as a working project manager, this type of planning and goal setting reinforces the fact that I am organized and motivated to all who see it (aren't you impressed?).

CALL TO ACTION:   Find and update, or create your professional development plan and share it in the comments.