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Individual Development Plans

Individual Development Plans (IDPs) serves as a planning process that identifies both professional development needs and career objectives. Furthermore, IDPs can serve as a tool to help facilitate communication between trainees and their mentors. 

Goals
Specifically, it helps graduate student trainees:

  • Create annual plans to reach their career goals;
  • Establish target dates for academic and research milestones;
  • Set goals and sub-goals for the next year, including discussions of how to spend their time;
  • Define in detail the approach they plan to take in order to obtain the specific skills and strengths needed (e.g., courses, technical skills, teaching, supervision) along with an anticipated time frames for obtaining those skills and strengths.

Benefits 
Graduate students have a process that assists them in developing long-term career goals. Additionally, identifying short-term (annual) goals give them a clearer sense of expectations and help identify milestones along the way to achieving specific objectives. The IDP also provides a tool that can be used to provide structure to conversations between the trainee and the trainee’s mentor.

Outline of the IDP Process
The development, implementation and revision of the IDP require a series of steps to be conducted by the trainee, and then discussed with their mentor. These steps are an interactive effort, and ideally both the trainee and their mentor will fully participate in the process.


Annual
Goals

Summary of expectations and responsibilities for each stage of training with links to tips and resources.

Part 1

Initiating the IDP: State your career goals and evaluate progress made during the past year.

Part 2

Skills assessment: Conduct an assessment of your strengths, weaknesses, and skills; ask your mentor/colleague to also provide an assessment.

Part 3

Set goals for the next year: List individual goals, methods to achieve goals, methods to assess progress, and develop a time management plan.

Part 4

Implementing your IDP:  Set an appointment with your mentor. Discuss your IDP with your mentor; implement the steps in your IDP; periodically review progress with your mentor.

 


IDP Document: (Word) (pdf)