Whether you’re in human resources, a business leader, or a manager, your team is a top priority. Investing time and effort to ensure their success means happier employees. It also leads to more significant achievements at the company level.
But how do you build a team that’s thriving, reaching new heights, and solving problems at the speed of light? ⚡
One effective way is to create development plans. These plans can help with everything from fostering new skills to succession planning and talent development.
Development plans aren’t just for teams. They’re incredibly useful for building your own skills and becoming a better leader.
Whether you’re into professional team development or personal development, this list of 10 free development plan templates will help you lay the groundwork for success.
- What is a Development Plan Template?
- What Makes a Good Development Plan Template?
- 10 Development Plan Templates to Use in 2024
- 1. ClickUp Personal Development Plan Template
- 2. ClickUp Employee Development Plan Template
- 3. ClickUp Business Development Plan Template
- 4. ClickUp Career Path Template
- 5. ClickUp SMART Goal Action Plan Template
- 6. ClickUp 30-60-90 Day Development Plan Template
- 7. ClickUp Daily Action Plan Template
- 8. ClickUp Personal Productivity Template
- 9. Individual Professional Development Plan Template by Slideteam
- 10. Excel Employee Development Plan Template by PeopleGoal
- Build Training Programs for Personal and Employee Growth
What is a Development Plan Template?
A development plan is a framework designed to improve skills, support growth, and increase productivity. These plans typically include a breakdown of the skills to work on, an action plan to guide the process, required resources, and a timeframe.
Development plans are created jointly between both the employee and the direct manager. Both sides provide input on the necessary skills and processes to meet the desired development goals. 🎯
Most development plans start with a discussion of professional goals. Next, strengths and talents are highlighted while weaknesses are identified. These serve as the basis of what the employee already does well and where to aim for improvements.
Based on these discussions, the employee and manager should then explore development opportunities. Working backward from the career goal, an action plan is drawn up with specific steps. This includes considering what types of resources are necessary, including training programs and workshops.
Development plan templates take the guesswork out of the process. They organize ideas and steps within the action plan. They also provide a framework and tracking system to manage progress along the way.
Use a development plan template to save time and start crafting a roadmap to success for each individual employee. 🏆
What Makes a Good Development Plan Template?
Development plans are a critical component of success and prevent stagnation for employees in the same role for a long time. They also set up an environment focused on continual achievement and learning.
A good development plan template will:
- Create clear organization: Look for development plan templates that offer organizational charts and tables to keep track of skills and action item steps
- List professional goals clearly: To build a culture of learning, choose a template that focuses on strengths and how to build new skills and lets you clearly outline the desired goals
- Have an action plan: A plan is only as good as its actionable steps. Look for templates that easily lay out a roadmap and steps to meet the overall goal
- Offer customization: The best templates are the ones you can personalize to meet your business needs
- Automate tasks: A great development plan template will include features to automate tasks based on the steps laid out in your development plan
10 Development Plan Templates to Use in 2024
Use the following employee development plan templates to help employees learn new skills, create action plans centered on goals, and build a more productive work environment. Leverage each one to your specific company needs.
Revisit the process regularly—including as part of business process reengineering—to build a culture of learning and productivity.
1. ClickUp Personal Development Plan Template
ClickUp’s Personal Development Plan (PDP) Template makes it easy to identify areas for improvement, create an action plan, and track progress metrics in one place.
Start by laying out a goal for your current role, identifying existing competencies, and establishing development needs. Use ClickUp Docs for your brainstorming process. 🧠
Next, set achievable milestones and tasks for your professional development plan. These should be measurable and it’s a good idea to set aside time to review them regularly. Stay accountable by assigning each task a custom status including Goal Met, Not Started, On Hold, or On Track.
Use the different custom views to monitor your progress. The Plan of Action view lets you see everything on your to-do list and a step-by-step road map to your development goals. PD per Quarter and Progress Tracker views let you monitor success along the way.
2. ClickUp Employee Development Plan Template
With ClickUp’s Employee Development Plan Template, your team will develop new skills and boost employee performance. Use the career development plan template to build customized and comprehensive roadmaps for both the employee and entire team. 🗺️
Start by assessing the current skills of each person on the team. Use ClickUp Goals to create a list of measurable objectives. Identify resources, manage knowledge each team member will need, and draw up an action plan based on the long-term goals.
This template makes it easy to conduct performance reviews and simplifies the onboarding process with new employees. Use color-coded task statuses to track progress. Change the views to see the progress of the entire department as a whole.
It’s even possible to hop into individual plans and employee summary reviews to monitor individual progress.
Time-tracking capabilities and automations (like email alerts) keep everyone on schedule and let you adjust the action plan as needed to keep the development program on target.
If any team members fall behind, automatically schedule check-ins to discuss how to address the issues to maintain your employee development plans.
3. ClickUp Business Development Plan Template
While personal and employee development plans let you build skills from the ground up, sometimes you need a business-level approach to growth. With ClickUp’s Business Development Plan Template, create business plans for your company as a whole.
Ideal for startups and businesses that are scaling, this development plan template lets you focus on skill development and company goals. Start by deciding what your business goals are. Next, create projects or ClickUp Spaces to represent each goal. 🏆
Break the goal down into manageable tasks for each team member. Assign permissions to let partners, consultants, or trainers access certain projects. Categorize tasks to stay organized and set up notifications to get alerts as things move through the pipeline.
Use Board view to see task progress or hop into the Gantt chart to create a schedule of tasks. Calendar view makes it easy to see if you’re on track while Table view lays out what step each task is at in the process.
4. ClickUp Career Path Template
Boost career growth and improve employee retention with the ClickUp Career Path Template.
This template makes it easy to set clear objectives, highlight current skills, and identify new certifications for growth. It’s also easy to lay out the scope of the development process and establish methods for measuring success.
Start by identifying the development needs of each individual employee on the team. Next, outline the resources they’ll need to reach their goals. These include access to online courses, professional training seminars, or mentorship programs.
Build a timeline to track goals and employee growth. Categorize tasks based on the amount of effort involved, impact level, and current status. Add custom fields to leverage the template for your specific employee needs.
5. ClickUp SMART Goal Action Plan Template
Get organized and build a step-by-step approach to meeting your development goals with the SMART Goal Action Plan Template from ClickUp. This free template cuts through the chaos by creating a simple structure and timeline for your development goals.
Create a new task for each new skill or objective you want to conquer. Assign priorities so you focus your time and effort where you need it most.
Organize your tasks into daily or weekly sprints to stay on schedule. Monitor progress by diving into different views from task lists and Gantt charts to board overviews.
Break your roadmap down further with custom fields. Label tasks based on the department or skill set you’re aiming for.
Add a ranking for task complexity to quickly see what items require a heavy lift and what are easy pickings. Task type and goal progress give insight into what you’re working on and how you’re progressing. 🛠️
6. ClickUp 30-60-90 Day Development Plan Template
Support professional growth and build a team of superstars with ClickUp’s 30-60-90 Day Template. Designed to simplify onboarding and development processes, use this template to create training SOPs across departments.
Clearly define the goal-setting process, including focusing on SMART goals. Next, create step-by-step procedures for trainers and employees to track over the next 30-60-90 day period. Finally, track progress and set up evaluations to continuously improve the process.
Features like multiple assignees make it easy to track progress, even when several people are involved in one task. It also streamlines team communication for better collaboration. Dependencies highlight tasks that need to be completed first to unblock other tasks.
7. ClickUp Daily Action Plan Template
One way to ensure personal growth is to build short-term goals and training into daily activities. Use ClickUp’s Daily Action Plan Template to identify skills gaps and break complex development programs into daily, bite-sized tasks.
The key benefit of this template is that goals become a key component of daily life. They’re not just abstract things to work towards every now and then.
The daily plan encourages employees to train and build skills every single day to meet overall objectives. 🌻
Since the main goal is broken down into daily tasks, use prioritization tools to highlight what needs to get done first. Dependencies clearly list tasks that are preventing progress in other areas so employees know what they need to address.
8. ClickUp Personal Productivity Template
As a team leader, it’s easy to get caught up and focus only on supporting their development programs. Don’t forget to work on yourself and set time aside for your own development.
Use ClickUp’s Personal Productivity Template to keep track of your own business goals and progress along the way.
Set up daily reminders for monthly goals and create daily to-do lists. Include goals for your career path or daily productivity habits for every aspect of your life. Make sure tasks are time-bound to track progress and stay on schedule.
9. Individual Professional Development Plan Template by Slideteam
Another template that helps lay out a growth path for individual employees is the Individual Development Plan Template from Slideteam. Use this professional development plan template to establish criteria for a training program and monitor success.
Laid out as a presentation, it offers a visual overview of the training program. Highlight competencies, discuss skills, and establish objectives in a few simple slides. 👨🏽💻
Streamline the decision-making process by establishing clear guidelines and frameworks for training across departments. When you’re ready to implement the action plan, use a project management software tool like ClickUp.
10. Excel Employee Development Plan Template by PeopleGoal
PeopleGoal’s Excel Development Plan Template is one way to create a productive environment for engaged employees. This project management tool creates a starting point for your training plan.
Work with the employee to fill in the fields for career goals, skills, knowledge, and personal traits. Next, establish potential distractions and break down each step based on more in-depth details.
Build Training Programs for Personal and Employee Growth
Whether you’re crafting SOPs for onboarding and training or working with an individual employee to drive growth, there’s a development plan template for your needs. Each template is customizable and part of a large project management space. That way, you can establish goals, monitor progress, and celebrate milestones all in one space.
Sign up for ClickUp today and create a more productive work environment for yourself and your employees. It’s easier than ever to build new skills and a happier workplace. ✨
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