Summing up thirty-five years of goal-setting research, Edwin Locke and Gary Latham kept arriving at the same result: a specific, difficult goal leads to higher performance than being urged to do your best.[1] The typical individual development plan form nudges people toward exactly that kind of exhortation, with "develop leadership skills" in the goal box, a training course under actions and the end of the year as the deadline. Twelve months later, neither the employee nor the manager can say whether a plan like that has been completed.
In the hypothetical case used throughout this article, Natalie, a senior sales analyst, prepares the quarterly report for the commercial director, while her department head presents it and would like to hand that meeting over to her within six months. After the annual review her IDP gained the line "develop presentation skills, attend a public speaking course, Q4." Natalie herself sees the difficulty elsewhere, because she finds it hard to open with the conclusion and to answer the director's questions when the data she needs isn't at hand. The case and its people are invented, and it serves to show how a line like that becomes a plan whose completion can actually be checked.
What an individual development plan is
An individual development plan, or IDP, is an agreement between an employee and their manager about which skills the employee will build over the next six to twelve months, through which actions, with whose support and by what signs both of them will know the change has happened. What separates it from a training plan is its subject, since a list of courses describes events while an IDP describes the change at work those events are meant to produce. It also differs from performance objectives, KPIs and quarterly targets in recording what the person is learning, which is why its goals are written in terms of behavior and skills, with revenue or project deadlines serving only as context.
The input for an IDP usually comes from the annual review, a 360-degree feedback report, a conversation about career plans or a move into a new role. If an employee measures growth by mastery and has no interest in becoming a manager, the plan is better built around expert work, and the article on Schein's career anchors explains how to recognize those preferences. For Natalie the source was a concrete prospect at work: her department head wants to hand her the quarterly meeting with the director, and the plan exists so that by April she runs it herself.
What goes into an IDP
The sections vary from company to company, but a working plan almost always answers six questions, and the list below shows how each one looks in Natalie's case.
- Development goal
- A skill or behavior and the work situation where it showsIn the case: Opening the quarterly presentation with the conclusion and the decision the team needs from the director
- Link to the job
- Why it matters to the employee and the teamIn the case: Within six months Natalie runs the meeting with the commercial director herself
- Actions
- Assignments at work, feedback, trainingIn the case: Reviewing two past presentations, drafting the January presentation, a short course
- Support
- Who helps, with what and how much time it takesIn the case: The department head, two 30-minute meetings a month
- Timeline and checkpoints
- Intermediate goals with datesIn the case: November to December, January, April
- How to check
- The sign by which the change is visibleIn the case: The director makes a decision on the section without asking for more data
The development goal is more reliable when it's written from data than from the manager's impression, and a 360 report suits that well, since it shows strengths and blind spots through the ratings of several rater groups. In formeasure a 360 cycle brings together the self-assessment and ratings from the manager, peers and direct reports, and the individual development report is assembled automatically, so the material for IDP goals is ready as soon as the cycle closes. How to read such a report is covered in the article on 360-degree feedback results, and the cycle itself is described on the formeasure 360 feedback page.
How to write a development goal
Locke and Latham explain the advantage of a specific goal by the fact that an exhortation to try hard gives no external reference point, so a person can't tell whether they've done enough. Feedback strengthens the effect, because a goal combined with regular information about progress toward it works better than the goal alone.[1] For an IDP this means the goal describes observable behavior in a particular situation, and the plan states in advance who will tell the employee how far they've come, and when.
What matters for development is that goal effects are noticeably weaker on complex tasks: in the meta-analysis Locke and Latham cite, the advantage of a specific difficult goal over doing your best was d = 0.77 for the simplest tasks and only 0.41 for the most complex ones. In Ruth Kanfer and Phillip Ackerman's air traffic controller simulation an outcome goal actually got in the way of learning the task, yet in Winters and Latham's study a specific, difficult learning goal produced significantly better performance than the instruction to do one's best.[1] A learning goal is phrased in terms of what the person needs to master, for example mastering a presentation structure that puts the conclusion first, followed by three arguments and the decision needed, while an outcome goal describes the end result, such as running the meeting without the manager's help.
The second practical conclusion from the same review comes from a business game run by Latham and Seijts. Participants given intermediate goals on top of a distant one showed higher self-efficacy and earned more profit than those given only the distant goal or simply asked to do their best.[1] That's why Natalie's plan is built as a sequence, starting with a learning goal for November and December and moving to an intermediate outcome goal in January, when she presents one section with her manager in the room. Only in April comes the final goal of running the meeting with the director on her own.
The SMART criteria often recommended for IDPs agree with these findings in asking for specificity, measurability and a deadline. They don't distinguish between a learning goal and an outcome goal, though, and for a new skill a person is only starting to build, that distinction decides whether the goal helps or gets in the way.
Which actions to include: experience, people and training
Actions in an IDP are conventionally split by the 70-20-10 ratio, according to which roughly 70 percent of development comes from experience on the job, 20 percent from other people and 10 percent from formal training. It's commonly traced back to studies at the Center for Creative Leadership in which executives were asked about the events that had shaped their development most. Alan Clardy reviewed the literature behind the rule, concluded that the evidence for the 70 percent figure is weak and proposed that it no longer be treated as an established fact.[2] In practice the ratio is still a useful reminder that a plan made only of courses ignores the main source of development, but counting percentages in an IDP makes no sense.
A meta-analysis by Brian Blume and his colleagues, which combined 89 studies of training transfer, shows why a course without practice afterward achieves little. Transfer was related to motivation and a supportive work environment, and for open skills such as leadership and communication these relationships were stronger than for closed skills such as using a particular piece of software.[3] Natalie's skill is an open one, so in her plan the course takes up a single line, while most of the work is carried by reviewing real presentations, drafts marked up by her manager and presenting at an actual meeting.
New behavior is easiest to derail at a difficult moment, and a plan can prepare for that moment too. In a meta-analysis of 94 independent tests, Peter Gollwitzer and Paschal Sheeran showed that plans in the form "if situation X arises, I will do Y" raise the likelihood of reaching a goal, with an average effect of medium-to-large size, d = 0.65.[4] For Natalie such a plan might read "if the director asks a question I don't have the data for, I'll give a date by which I'll send the answer and write the question down." A line like that answers in advance the situation Natalie worries about most.
Employee IDP example
Here is Natalie's full six-month plan, written according to the rules above: the learning goal comes first, the intermediate outcome goal is checked in January and the final goal sits in April.
- Learning goalNovember to December
Master the structure of a management presentation: conclusion, three arguments, the decision the team needs
- Actions
- Review two past quarterly presentations with the manager, take a short business presentation course, draft the January presentation
- Support
- The department head, two 30-minute meetings a month
- How to check
- The January draft doesn't need its structure reworked
- Interim goalJanuary
Present the sales funnel section at the January meeting with the director
- Actions
- Rehearse the section with a colleague, prepare answers to likely questions, use the plan "if a question comes up without data, I give a date for the answer"
- Support
- The manager runs the rest of the meeting and gives feedback afterward
- How to check
- The director makes a decision on the section without asking for more data
- Final goalApril
Run the April quarterly meeting independently
- Actions
- Prepare the whole presentation, with the manager only reading the draft
- Support
- A meeting with the manager a week before the presentation
- How to check
- The manager and the director answer three questions: was the conclusion clear, was there enough data, was it obvious which decision was needed
The plan contains no "develop" or "improve", and every goal has a sign the manager can observe directly. The January goal does two jobs at once, since it tests the first goal at a real meeting and gives Natalie feedback before she faces the director alone. The April check relies on three simple questions put to the participants right after the meeting, while the impression is still fresh.
Manager IDP example
For a manager the logic of the plan stays the same, but the goals more often concern working with people, which is especially visible in those who've recently moved up from specialist roles. In the second hypothetical example, Victor became head of a team of six testers six months ago, still spends more than half his week on his own testing work, and raised a drop in one employee's work quality only at the annual review.
- Feedback
Discuss a drop in work quality within a week of the first instance
- Actions
- Prepare a structure for the conversation with the HR business partner, hold the first such conversation and review it with his own manager
- Timeline
- First conversation by the end of December, review in January
- How to check
- At the January review Victor and his manager check how many instances in the quarter were discussed within a week
- Delegation
Cut his own testing work to one day a week
- Actions
- Hand two recurring checks over to team members with clear completion criteria, move the freed time to planning the team's work
- Timeline
- Two days a week by January, one day by March
- How to check
- Share of time on his own tasks according to the task tracker
Both goals describe behavior that shows in everyday work, and both can be checked without a questionnaire. After six months it's worth checking the change through the team's eyes, since a short repeat 360 cycle on two competencies or a pulse question to direct reports will show whether they've noticed a difference. The article on employee pulse surveys explains how to set up that kind of measurement.
The role of the manager and HR in an IDP
Raymond Noe and Steffanie Wilk studied what drives participation in development using data from roughly a thousand employees in three organizations: a health maintenance organization, a financial services firm and a public sector engineering firm. Motivation to learn, perceived benefits and perceptions of the work environment were related to how actively employees took part in development activities.[5] Taken together with Blume's findings on training transfer, this means an IDP without dedicated time and support from the manager stays on paper, however precisely its goals are worded.[3]
The manager takes on three responsibilities in the plan: setting aside time in the schedule, providing assignments on which the skill can be practiced, and coming to check-ins with specific feedback. HR owns the template, trains managers and makes sure the IDP remains a development tool, which is why tying completion of the plan directly to a bonus is unwise, since the employee then has every reason to pick goals they'd reach anyway. Besides the working sessions on the tasks themselves, a six-month plan needs only one short check-in a month plus a review at each checkpoint, with the document itself open to both the employee and the manager at any time.
Common IDP mistakes
The first mistake concerns the wording of the goal, when the box contains a personal quality such as "leadership" or "resilience" and nothing in it says what the person will do differently. The second is a plan made only of courses, where training stands in for practice, even though for open skills transfer without support on the job is especially weak according to Blume and his co-authors. The third is having too many goals, since five or six directions over six months leave time for none of them, and limiting the plan to two or three works more reliably. That's a working rule of ours, and research sets no particular number.
The other group of mistakes concerns the process, and the first of them arises when HR or the manager fills in the plan without the employee. A document like that rarely reflects what the person finds hard, as in Natalie's case, where the public speaking course solved a different problem. If the IDP is opened only at the annual review there are no intermediate checkpoints and feedback arrives too late, and a plan without a completion sign turns into a conversation about impressions in which the manager and the employee easily disagree.
Limitations of this approach
The goal-setting research this article draws on was mostly conducted on tasks with a clear, measurable outcome and in many cases in laboratory settings, and the development of complex managerial skills has been studied far less. If-then plans in Gollwitzer and Sheeran's meta-analysis were tested mainly on health behaviors, studying and laboratory tasks, with few studies of development at work, so their effect on development at work is best treated as likely rather than guaranteed.[4] The 70-20-10 ratio remains a rule of thumb that nobody has measured reliably enough to justify calculating shares in a plan.[2] The cases of Natalie and Victor are hypothetical and their goals were chosen for illustration, while the timeline and number of checkpoints in a real plan depend on the skill and on how often work offers a situation in which it can be practiced.
IDPs and 360 feedback in formeasure
An individual development plan is easiest to keep in a document the employee and the manager open at every meeting, and formeasure covers two points in that cycle. A 360 cycle provides the starting data for the goals: the self-assessment and ratings from the manager, peers and direct reports in anonymous or open mode, along with an automatically assembled individual development report. A repeat cycle on the chosen competencies or a short survey in the survey builder then shows whether colleagues have noticed the changes the plan was written for.
Frequently asked questions about individual development plans
What is an individual development plan?
It's an agreement between an employee and their manager about which skills the employee will build over the next six to twelve months, through which actions, with whose support and by what signs the change will be visible. Unlike a training plan, an IDP describes a change at work, and courses are one of the ways to achieve it.
How do you write an individual development plan?
Start by picking one to three skills based on the annual review, a 360 report or a new role, then phrase a goal for each in terms of behavior in a work situation. After that, write down the on-the-job actions and training, the manager's support, dated intermediate checkpoints and the sign by which the change will be visible.
What goals should an IDP include?
Goals describe observable behavior, such as "open the quarterly presentation with the conclusion and the decision needed", rather than qualities like "leadership". For a new, complex skill the first goal is a learning goal, meaning what has to be mastered, and an outcome goal follows once the person has tried the new behavior.
How many goals should an IDP have?
Two or three goals over six months are usually enough, because more directions leave no time for practice and feedback on each of them; that's a working rule, and research sets no particular number.
How long should an IDP cover?
Most often six to twelve months, with intermediate checkpoints every one or two months. The timeline depends on how often work offers a situation in which the skill can be practiced.
Who writes the IDP: the employee, the manager or HR?
The employee and the manager write the plan together, while HR provides the template, trains managers and makes sure the IDP remains a development tool. A plan filled in without the employee rarely reflects what the person actually finds difficult.
What is the 70-20-10 model?
It's a rule of thumb according to which roughly 70 percent of development comes from experience on the job, 20 percent from other people and 10 percent from training. Alan Clardy's review found the evidence behind these figures weak, so the model is useful as a reminder to include work assignments in the plan but not as a norm for calculation.
How do you check whether an IDP has been completed?
Each goal gets a sign, written down in advance, that the manager can observe: a decision by the director without a request for more data, the share of time in the task tracker, answers from meeting participants. After six months it helps to check the change through other people's eyes, for example with a repeat 360 on the chosen competencies.
How are an IDP and 360 feedback related?
A 360 report shows strengths and blind spots through the ratings of several groups, which makes it good material for IDP goals. A repeat 360 cycle on the same competencies six months or a year later helps show whether colleagues have noticed the change.
Sources
- Locke E. A., Latham G. P. — Building a practically useful theory of goal setting and task motivation: A 35-year odyssey // American Psychologist. 2002. Vol. 57, No. 9. P. 705–717. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.57.9.705
- Clardy A. — 70-20-10 and the dominance of informal learning: A fact in search of evidence // Human Resource Development Review. 2018. Vol. 17, No. 2. P. 153–178. https://doi.org/10.1177/1534484318759399
- Blume B. D., Ford J. K., Baldwin T. T., Huang J. L. — Transfer of training: A meta-analytic review // Journal of Management. 2010. Vol. 36, No. 4. P. 1065–1105. https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206309352880
- Gollwitzer P. M., Sheeran P. — Implementation intentions and goal achievement: A meta-analysis of effects and processes // Advances in Experimental Social Psychology. 2006. Vol. 38. P. 69–119. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0065-2601(06)38002-1
- Noe R. A., Wilk S. L. — Investigation of the factors that influence employees' participation in development activities // Journal of Applied Psychology. 1993. Vol. 78, No. 2. P. 291–302. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.78.2.291