MANAGING AND PLANNING YOUR OWN CPD
The learning process should be an integral part of both your
working and your personal life. As you acquire new skills and experience you
should improve both your levels of performance and the amount of job
satisfaction that you obtain. It may also be that you are able to transfer
skills between your working and your personal life. A new language, for
instance, might have been obtained in order to increase the enjoyment of an
overseas holiday but it may also open up new career opportunities. Lifelong
learning, or Continuing Personal or Professional
Development (CPD), has long been recognised as a pathway to success in an
increasingly competitive and dynamic business environment.
Historically, the undertaking of CPD has been perceived as
only being relevant to members of professional bodies with most of them
expecting their members to carry out CPD as a ‘duty of membership’.
None of us stop learning, however, whether or not we are
members of professional bodies. What is important is that rather than acting as
a ‘sponge’, absorbing any information that helps us at work, we take a
structured or planned approach to the learning process. Only by doing this will
we be able to make others aware of the new skills that we have developed.
Equally, it is only by adopting a structured approach that
we will be able to maximise the value of the learning that we do by ensuring
that our efforts are directed into beneficial areas and that we do actually
"learn" something as opposed to obtaining information and then
promptly forgetting it.
The benefits of taking a structured approach to skills and
knowledge enhancement are common to all, irrespective of what job they do or how
senior within the organisation they are.
When CPD first became obligatory there was a temptation to
over-emphasise the quantity of hours spent "doing CPD". It is
now recognised that it is the quality of CPD that makes a difference and
the CPD Certification Service’s Personal Development Planner which follows has
been designed with this change of emphasis in mind.
It aims to link your personal and career needs to business
and lifestyle goals and to provide a structured way of planning and recording
your CPD so that you will get the best out of it.
This paper defines the concept of CPD
and indicates the different types of
activity which can qualify as CPD. It discusses the nature
of private structured learning and the ways in which this can work alongside the
more traditional seminars, courses etc in offering the user a complete set of
learning resources.
The CPD Planner which can be downloaded
in the form of an Excel 97 spreadsheet, offers a means of listing the planning
processes that will be required. These are deciding what
you need to learn and how to learn it,
deciding on a time scale, analising the
resources that will be required and
developing a critera for measuring the
level of success.
It should also be remembered that once a CPD programme has been
planned, it is necessary to put it into use and to record all of the CPD
activities that have taken place. A record form has been produced, which can be downloaded
in the form of an Excel 97 spreadsheet and guidance
on its use is offered
If you would find it easier to read this material in the
form of a printed paper, it can be downloaded
in the form of an MS Word 97 document.
Some professional bodies may have developed CPD Planners which meet their
particular CPD requirements. The CPD Department of your institute will be able
to give you precise guidance.
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