Thing 23: What next?

The final thing has come around again!

Thank you all for following the programme and well done for getting to Thing 23.  A short evaluation of the programme is coming soon, but if you're up for a challenge maybe you could come up with a "6 word story" to sum up how you feel about the programme.

Many organisations include some kind of Personal Development Plans (PDP) as part of their staff review/appraisal processes.  The idea with these is that you identify some sort of development need, think about how you could fill that gap, and set yourself a SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-Limited) objective to help you do it. I've put together a quick template that can be used for this, but feel free to tweak it to suit yourself or use one of the many other templates available online.

The Task:

1. For this last thing, we would like you to reflect on the programme in general and on what you want to do next.
2. Identify some gaps in your experience, either by looking at requirements for that next job you're aiming for or by conducting a SWOT analysis or personal skills audit.  If you are a CILIP member, their new Professional Knowledge and Skills Base is worth looking at and I'm sure equivalents exist for other library associations.  The Library Routes and Library Day in the Life projects might be helpful here too.
3. Think about how you can fill those gaps and put together a Personal Development Plan to do that.  You don't have to put the PDP or SWOT analysis on the blog unless you feel comfortable doing that.
4. Write about the process of putting the plan together and whether you think this is a useful way to think about your CPD in general.
5. Keep blogging and let us know how you get on!

Open Road by therefromhere