Study tips for ACCA exams
Do you know why we often forget what we
have learnt? When we are preparing for our
ACCA exams, some of us might spoon-feed all
the materials so as to memorise all the stuff for
the exams. Some of us may just read through
the past papers in the hope that some of the
questions might re-appear in the real exams.
However, sometimes we still cannot manage
to answer the questions well. Even worse, we
can hardly retain much from what we have
memorised throughout and after the exam?
Why is that the case?
The answer is that we do not understand
the knowledge and are thus unable to apply
it to answer the questions. There is an old
Chinese proverb which states, “Tell me and
I will forget; show me and I will remember;
involve me and I will understand.” Another
version is from Native American proverb which
states, “Tell me and I will forget; show me and
I may not remember; involve me and I will
understand.” Someone said this quote was
from Mr Benjamin Franklin.
No matter what the origin of the proverb
is, it shows us an important philosophy - we
need to be involved in order to make us fully
understand.
How to get involved?
In accordance with the Cambridge
Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, “involve”
means “to include someone or something in
something, or make them take part in or feel
part of it”. As an ACCA student, that means to
include us in the ACCA exams, make us take
part in or feel part of the exams.
To be part of the exams, first of all, we
should not be afraid of them. We need to
make friends with them. One of my friends
said, “ACCA exam is just like my husband,
I have already engaged with it.” Thus we
need to face the exams whole-heartedly
every day. In addition, we need to have an
active participation in studying for the exams.
Moreover, we need to have a proper plan and
strategy with good resources for our study.
Which study method is more effective?
Researches showed that just listening to
lectures and reading books are not sufficient for
us to understand the knowledge. The retention
rate for these learning methods is extremely
low, just around 5 to 10%. In order to have a
better understanding and higher retention rate,
we need to have discussion and practice by
doing. The retention rate can then be increased
to 50% and 75% respectively. These are the
examples of getting involved:
Forming a study group of 2 to 4 people
is helpful for learning. The group should
have the same goal which is to pass ACCA
exams. More than 4 people will make the
group ineffective. Periodically, the group can
meet and discuss some difficult topics and
questions. I still remember when I prepared for
the A-level exams, I formed a study group with
my classmates. We met every day and then
challenged each other with difficult questions.
We then discussed and resolved them. One
day our chemistry teacher gave us a difficult
chemistry question that he could not find
out the answer. We managed to discuss and
resolve that quickly within the study group,
and afterwards we all achieved very good
results in the A-level exams.
Once I attended a seminar conducted by
Dr Stephen Covey, one of the world’s leading
business and management gurus and the
international best selling author of The 7
Habits of Highly Effective People. He asked
the participants to teach in turn what they
have just learnt to the participants of their
table. From our observation, we found that
those participants who were required to teach
would concentrate more. Thus, they learnt a
lot. This proves that if we teach others, we
learn the most. Why not start taking turn to
teach difficult topics in your study group? You
may find it enhancing you extent of retention
up to more than 90%.
Practice by doing past papers and revision
questions is a must. This could contribute to
our understanding and let us experience the
style of and approach to the questions. It is
great that ACCA provides marking schemes
for all the past papers. These give us a clear
indication of what the examiners need and
how we should perform in order to score the
marks. Realistically, ACCA exams are not easy.
Without practice, we could not achieve good
marks. Please don’t just read the past papers.
As we have mentioned before, the retention
rate of reading is much lower than that of
practice by doing.
Thus, in order to study effectively amid
our busy life, we should use wise learning
methods.
How to plan our study?
To learn how to plan, there is a great book
called The Art of War () which is
written by Sun Tzu. In the first chapter “Laying
Plans”, Sun Tzu said, “Now the General who
wins a battle makes many calculations in his
temple where the battle is fought. A General
who loses a battle makes but few calculations
beforehand. Thus do many calculations lead
to victory, and few calculations to defeat:
how much more no calculation at all!. It is by
attention to this point that I can foresee who is
likely to win or lose.”
To win, we need to lay a detail as early
as possible. We will soon receive the ACCA.
exam results. Afterwards, we need to decide
how many papers and which papers we will
attempt in June 2008. It depends on how
much study time we could allocate from now
on to early June.
To achieve the best results, we need to
have a SMART goal. That means we should
have a right state of mind and determine a
Specific, Measurable, Achievable and Realistic
goal after considering the Time element. No
matter how many papers we will attempt,
we need to commit to the goal we have
set. In addition, we need to review our goal
periodically to see how it goes.
Every good plan needs a proper timetable.
We need to mark down the dates of exams
and schedule, the time for working, training,
dining out, relaxing, networking, etc. in our
calendars. All the remaining time can then be
used for studying. We then allocate the topics
to study and the questions to attempt in our
timetables. Please remember to allocate some
time for our revision because it acts as a bridge
between study and exams. This could refresh
our memory and help us synthesise what we
have learnt for application in the exams.
What are the other study tips?
When studying, it is better to cover more
difficult topics first. Otherwise, you will have
little time to tackle them when exams are
approaching. However, we may easily get
exhausted if we just focus on difficult topics.
Thus, we may choose to study some easier
topics amongst difficult ones.
Concentration during studying is a key
factor in effective learning. Please study at the
right time in the right place. When studying,
we must have an inquiring mind. The great
scientist, Mr Albert Einstein said, “The
important thing is not to stop asking questions”
I am not sure whether you have a habit
of making notes. When preparing for ACCA
exams, making notes can enhance our
understanding and also gives you an excellent
revision before the exams. The use of mind
maps can let us have a good summary and
logic of the topics we have studied.
If you have not yet read my articles on
study and exam techniques in the four issues
of the News Update in 2007, I hope you will
do so as these articles will suggest you more
skills to succeed in ACCA exams. Please also
attend my workshop on Strategy to Tackle the
New ACCA Exams to be held on 26 April 2008
(please refer to the enclosed enrolment form
for details)
What should I do now?
ACCA exams are not easy. They are challenging, professional and practical exams. Please start
your study now. The earlier you plan and start, the more the likelihood of passing the exams. Please
act now.
May I take this opportunity to wish you a joyful, healthy and fruitful Year of the Rat! Good luck
to your exams!
NEXT SECTION
Book Review
leadership & self deception:
getting out of the box
I knew that this book was likely to be
worthwhile when the publisher sent me not one
but two copies for review in two consecutive
weeks…. intriguing! Well, this excellent
pocket-sized paperback came with its praises
being sung out on the front cover by none less
than Stephen R Covey, classic business guru
and author of 7 Habits of Highly Effective
People; “profound..engaging...packed with
insight. I couldn’t recommend it more highly.
“OK Steve” I thought, “I’ll give it a go” and
sure enough, I couldn’t put it down.
First of all, The Arbinger Institute
www.arbinger.com, who has synthesised
this case study from actual experiences in
their training work, describes itself as a
“forerunner (cf harbinger) of change”. They
aim to help people see in a different way,
to see differently the problems, conflicts,
challenges and opportunities faced in life.
Their philosophy is that until someone begins
to see differently, old problems remain. The
Institute is fundamentally about helping
people to conceive and bring about lasting
solutions and real change, especially where
such changes have proved difficult to effect or
maintain before. Their approach results from
decades-long exploration into the problem of
self-deception attempting to find the solution
to the three-fold question: how can people
simultaneously 1) create their own problems
2) be unable to see that they are creating their
own problems and yet 3) resist any attempts
to help them stop creating those problems?
The book is written in the first person, as
the experience of a bright new recruit, Tom,
entering employment as a team manager in
a large organisation, admired as a market
leader in its field. ( He has been recruited from
a competitor organisation). This young man
is married with a young family; he is highly
ambitious and quietly confident in his ability
to put in long hours and prove himself as a
worthy man for the job to his new bosses. His
work ethic is strong but is having an effect on
his personal family life and his relationship
with his wife. There is a smack of arrogance in
his self-confidence and a lack of team cohesion
in his department, so, after a couple of months
he finds himself in the position of being called
in for appraisal in person by none other than
the Executive VP of the organisation, Bud
Jefferson, a highly respected and revered
member of the senior management team
and right hand man to the President, Kate
Stenarude. Together they help Tom discover,
through some very intense discussions and real
life scenarios, some important issues about
himself and his self-deception in his approach
to his work and his team and his wife.
The ensuing chapters, written in
conversational style between Bud and our
protagonist, Tom, lead us through a series of
entertaining “stories” which bring out Tom’s
realisation and understanding of how he is not
fulfilling his potential because he is suffering
from the problem of self-deception (which you
will soon realise we probably all do from time
to time), how that undermines his ability to
lead his team effectively, how he gets “in the
Box” or the trap of listening and believing in
his own self-deception and self-betrayal, how
he can learn to get “out of the Box” and what
will happens if and when he does.
All this in 170 easy flowing pages. Itis truly easy to read and really enlightening
when you yourself gain the insight of why
things go wrong with your relationships with
people at work, in your team and indeed in
your personal life. This is a first class lesson
in life skills and offers fundamental pointers
to good communication – which is becoming
an increasingly pertinent issue in management
today. With an upcoming generation of young
people who are communicating more by text
and email using online short-form language,
entertaining themselves with electronic
gadgets, chat rooms, online dating and so on,
in contrast to traditional social skills involving
face to face and person to person interactions,
these human skills need more than ever to be
taught, learned, implemented and practised!
Looking back on the slightly contrived
stage-setting of the book, you could criticise
the presentation of Bud, the senior VP, and
indeed Kate, the CEO, for being perhaps
slightly unlikely iconoclastic figures – polished
yet real, mysterious yet open, driven yet
humane and amazingly available for and
eloquent at training their junior staff on a oneto-
one level! Oh that we all had that privilege
and insight from our superiors.
However it also reminded me that all the
great management gurus point us towards
looking at our own behaviour and example as
leaders in business and honing our listening
skills so we effectively keep ourselves out of
what the Arbinger Institute call The Box of
Self-Deception. And not just the management
gurus – it was Charles Kingsley who famously
brought us in his children’s classic The Water
Babies, the character Mrs Do-As-You-Would-
Be-Done-By, an epithet one too often finds
oneself thinking about after an unfortunate
event at work which we really should have
handled better.
It is a couple of months since I read this
little gem of a book and I find I can still quote
stories and examples from it, without needing
to look them up, to encourage my friends
and colleagues to pick this book up and find
enlightenment for themselves. For me that is a
sign of a really useful tool – and I recommend
it most highly for your bookshelf for that reason
alone.
NEXT SECTION
take control
of your future
Professional development is often a
function associated with the human resources
department. But taking personal responsibility
for your professional development is crucial in
the current competitive employment market
and ever changing workplace.
So what can you do to keep up with
new technologies and trends and remain at
the forefront of industry best practice in your
profession? A professional development plan
is a great place to start and the beginning of a
new year is the ideal time to put your plan into
action.
Steps for creating a professional development
plan
A professional development plan can
provide you with the necessary tools to
evaluate, select and review your career
direction. First you need to reflect on what you
already know including formal qualifications,
self-taught skills and life experiences, and
use these as the foundation to build your
professional development plan.
There are four main steps to consider
which will provide the framework for your
professional development plan:
1. Set goals
Let’s start with the basics. Begin by
developing a roadmap to keep yourself on track
with your professional development. Include
long-term goals but be sure to incorporate
short-term goals and monthly targets as
practical stepping stones along the way.
Write down personal, professional and career
goals that are specific, measurable and can
realistically be achieved. It is generally best
to focus on a few goals each year so you will
need to decide which goals are most important
for the current year.
2. Identify opportunities
Now it’s time to identify any additional
training, educational requirements or skills you
need to meet your goals. It pays to do your
research and be prepared to put forward a case
to your manager if you are seeking support for
a course or study from your employer. Some
examples of professional development activities
include:
® Formal training e.g. study
® Self-directed learning e.g. reading industry
publications, research
® Networking
® On-the-job training or coaching by a senior
colleague
® Adding new work or increasing your
current level of responsibility
® Joining professional associations and/or
committees
Once you have decided on the professional
development activities you wish to pursue and
have set your goals for the current year, you
will need to decide how you wish to proceed.
3. Put your plan into action
To ensure the success of your professional
development plan, you must decide what
actions you will take to accomplish your goals
and when you will do each step. The best
way to do this is to record the information
in a written professional development plan.
You might like to create a spreadsheet with
columns to record goals you will address this
year. Sample headings may include goals;
strategies; timeline; evidence of progress; date
goal is met and future goals/plans.
If a professional development plan is not
a formal part of your annual review as an
employee, you should take the time to discuss
your plan with your manager so they are aware
of your personal and professional goals and
can play an active role in helping you achieve
them.
4. Review progress
The final step in your professional
development plan is to schedule time for
review. Re-evaluating your goals and actions
allows you to make adjustments and to see
if your desired outcomes are being achieved.
Break down your areas of development for a
calendar year into sections, then nominate a
day each month to review your progress and
make adjustments as necessary. This will
ensure you keep on track and achieve your
career goals.
Benefits of planning
A professional development plan can help
give you the direction and focus you need.
Implementing the framework outlined above
will help give you personal ownership of your
career direction and achieve your professional
goals.
Not only will a professional development
plan help you clarify your personal and
professional goals and objectives, it will
also help you identify your competencies,
interests and abilities. It may require some
self-discipline but those who make the effort
and take ownership for their professional
development will reap the rewards!
Do you know why we often forget what we
have learnt? When we are preparing for our
ACCA exams, some of us might spoon-feed all
the materials so as to memorise all the stuff for
the exams. Some of us may just read through
the past papers in the hope that some of the
questions might re-appear in the real exams.
However, sometimes we still cannot manage
to answer the questions well. Even worse, we
can hardly retain much from what we have
memorised throughout and after the exam?
Why is that the case?
The answer is that we do not understand
the knowledge and are thus unable to apply
it to answer the questions. There is an old
Chinese proverb which states, “Tell me and
I will forget; show me and I will remember;
involve me and I will understand.” Another
version is from Native American proverb which
states, “Tell me and I will forget; show me and
I may not remember; involve me and I will
understand.” Someone said this quote was
from Mr Benjamin Franklin.
No matter what the origin of the proverb
is, it shows us an important philosophy - we
need to be involved in order to make us fully
understand.
How to get involved?
In accordance with the Cambridge
Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, “involve”
means “to include someone or something in
something, or make them take part in or feel
part of it”. As an ACCA student, that means to
include us in the ACCA exams, make us take
part in or feel part of the exams.
To be part of the exams, first of all, we
should not be afraid of them. We need to
make friends with them. One of my friends
said, “ACCA exam is just like my husband,
I have already engaged with it.” Thus we
need to face the exams whole-heartedly
every day. In addition, we need to have an
active participation in studying for the exams.
Moreover, we need to have a proper plan and
strategy with good resources for our study.
Which study method is more effective?
Researches showed that just listening to
lectures and reading books are not sufficient for
us to understand the knowledge. The retention
rate for these learning methods is extremely
low, just around 5 to 10%. In order to have a
better understanding and higher retention rate,
we need to have discussion and practice by
doing. The retention rate can then be increased
to 50% and 75% respectively. These are the
examples of getting involved:
Forming a study group of 2 to 4 people
is helpful for learning. The group should
have the same goal which is to pass ACCA
exams. More than 4 people will make the
group ineffective. Periodically, the group can
meet and discuss some difficult topics and
questions. I still remember when I prepared for
the A-level exams, I formed a study group with
my classmates. We met every day and then
challenged each other with difficult questions.
We then discussed and resolved them. One
day our chemistry teacher gave us a difficult
chemistry question that he could not find
out the answer. We managed to discuss and
resolve that quickly within the study group,
and afterwards we all achieved very good
results in the A-level exams.
Once I attended a seminar conducted by
Dr Stephen Covey, one of the world’s leading
business and management gurus and the
international best selling author of The 7
Habits of Highly Effective People. He asked
the participants to teach in turn what they
have just learnt to the participants of their
table. From our observation, we found that
those participants who were required to teach
would concentrate more. Thus, they learnt a
lot. This proves that if we teach others, we
learn the most. Why not start taking turn to
teach difficult topics in your study group? You
may find it enhancing you extent of retention
up to more than 90%.
Practice by doing past papers and revision
questions is a must. This could contribute to
our understanding and let us experience the
style of and approach to the questions. It is
great that ACCA provides marking schemes
for all the past papers. These give us a clear
indication of what the examiners need and
how we should perform in order to score the
marks. Realistically, ACCA exams are not easy.
Without practice, we could not achieve good
marks. Please don’t just read the past papers.
As we have mentioned before, the retention
rate of reading is much lower than that of
practice by doing.
Thus, in order to study effectively amid
our busy life, we should use wise learning
methods.
How to plan our study?
To learn how to plan, there is a great book
called The Art of War () which is
written by Sun Tzu. In the first chapter “Laying
Plans”, Sun Tzu said, “Now the General who
wins a battle makes many calculations in his
temple where the battle is fought. A General
who loses a battle makes but few calculations
beforehand. Thus do many calculations lead
to victory, and few calculations to defeat:
how much more no calculation at all!. It is by
attention to this point that I can foresee who is
likely to win or lose.”
To win, we need to lay a detail as early
as possible. We will soon receive the ACCA.
exam results. Afterwards, we need to decide
how many papers and which papers we will
attempt in June 2008. It depends on how
much study time we could allocate from now
on to early June.
To achieve the best results, we need to
have a SMART goal. That means we should
have a right state of mind and determine a
Specific, Measurable, Achievable and Realistic
goal after considering the Time element. No
matter how many papers we will attempt,
we need to commit to the goal we have
set. In addition, we need to review our goal
periodically to see how it goes.
Every good plan needs a proper timetable.
We need to mark down the dates of exams
and schedule, the time for working, training,
dining out, relaxing, networking, etc. in our
calendars. All the remaining time can then be
used for studying. We then allocate the topics
to study and the questions to attempt in our
timetables. Please remember to allocate some
time for our revision because it acts as a bridge
between study and exams. This could refresh
our memory and help us synthesise what we
have learnt for application in the exams.
What are the other study tips?
When studying, it is better to cover more
difficult topics first. Otherwise, you will have
little time to tackle them when exams are
approaching. However, we may easily get
exhausted if we just focus on difficult topics.
Thus, we may choose to study some easier
topics amongst difficult ones.
Concentration during studying is a key
factor in effective learning. Please study at the
right time in the right place. When studying,
we must have an inquiring mind. The great
scientist, Mr Albert Einstein said, “The
important thing is not to stop asking questions”
I am not sure whether you have a habit
of making notes. When preparing for ACCA
exams, making notes can enhance our
understanding and also gives you an excellent
revision before the exams. The use of mind
maps can let us have a good summary and
logic of the topics we have studied.
If you have not yet read my articles on
study and exam techniques in the four issues
of the News Update in 2007, I hope you will
do so as these articles will suggest you more
skills to succeed in ACCA exams. Please also
attend my workshop on Strategy to Tackle the
New ACCA Exams to be held on 26 April 2008
(please refer to the enclosed enrolment form
for details)
What should I do now?
ACCA exams are not easy. They are challenging, professional and practical exams. Please start
your study now. The earlier you plan and start, the more the likelihood of passing the exams. Please
act now.
May I take this opportunity to wish you a joyful, healthy and fruitful Year of the Rat! Good luck
to your exams!
NEXT SECTION
Book Review
leadership & self deception:
getting out of the box
I knew that this book was likely to be
worthwhile when the publisher sent me not one
but two copies for review in two consecutive
weeks…. intriguing! Well, this excellent
pocket-sized paperback came with its praises
being sung out on the front cover by none less
than Stephen R Covey, classic business guru
and author of 7 Habits of Highly Effective
People; “profound..engaging...packed with
insight. I couldn’t recommend it more highly.
“OK Steve” I thought, “I’ll give it a go” and
sure enough, I couldn’t put it down.
First of all, The Arbinger Institute
www.arbinger.com, who has synthesised
this case study from actual experiences in
their training work, describes itself as a
“forerunner (cf harbinger) of change”. They
aim to help people see in a different way,
to see differently the problems, conflicts,
challenges and opportunities faced in life.
Their philosophy is that until someone begins
to see differently, old problems remain. The
Institute is fundamentally about helping
people to conceive and bring about lasting
solutions and real change, especially where
such changes have proved difficult to effect or
maintain before. Their approach results from
decades-long exploration into the problem of
self-deception attempting to find the solution
to the three-fold question: how can people
simultaneously 1) create their own problems
2) be unable to see that they are creating their
own problems and yet 3) resist any attempts
to help them stop creating those problems?
The book is written in the first person, as
the experience of a bright new recruit, Tom,
entering employment as a team manager in
a large organisation, admired as a market
leader in its field. ( He has been recruited from
a competitor organisation). This young man
is married with a young family; he is highly
ambitious and quietly confident in his ability
to put in long hours and prove himself as a
worthy man for the job to his new bosses. His
work ethic is strong but is having an effect on
his personal family life and his relationship
with his wife. There is a smack of arrogance in
his self-confidence and a lack of team cohesion
in his department, so, after a couple of months
he finds himself in the position of being called
in for appraisal in person by none other than
the Executive VP of the organisation, Bud
Jefferson, a highly respected and revered
member of the senior management team
and right hand man to the President, Kate
Stenarude. Together they help Tom discover,
through some very intense discussions and real
life scenarios, some important issues about
himself and his self-deception in his approach
to his work and his team and his wife.
The ensuing chapters, written in
conversational style between Bud and our
protagonist, Tom, lead us through a series of
entertaining “stories” which bring out Tom’s
realisation and understanding of how he is not
fulfilling his potential because he is suffering
from the problem of self-deception (which you
will soon realise we probably all do from time
to time), how that undermines his ability to
lead his team effectively, how he gets “in the
Box” or the trap of listening and believing in
his own self-deception and self-betrayal, how
he can learn to get “out of the Box” and what
will happens if and when he does.
All this in 170 easy flowing pages. Itis truly easy to read and really enlightening
when you yourself gain the insight of why
things go wrong with your relationships with
people at work, in your team and indeed in
your personal life. This is a first class lesson
in life skills and offers fundamental pointers
to good communication – which is becoming
an increasingly pertinent issue in management
today. With an upcoming generation of young
people who are communicating more by text
and email using online short-form language,
entertaining themselves with electronic
gadgets, chat rooms, online dating and so on,
in contrast to traditional social skills involving
face to face and person to person interactions,
these human skills need more than ever to be
taught, learned, implemented and practised!
Looking back on the slightly contrived
stage-setting of the book, you could criticise
the presentation of Bud, the senior VP, and
indeed Kate, the CEO, for being perhaps
slightly unlikely iconoclastic figures – polished
yet real, mysterious yet open, driven yet
humane and amazingly available for and
eloquent at training their junior staff on a oneto-
one level! Oh that we all had that privilege
and insight from our superiors.
However it also reminded me that all the
great management gurus point us towards
looking at our own behaviour and example as
leaders in business and honing our listening
skills so we effectively keep ourselves out of
what the Arbinger Institute call The Box of
Self-Deception. And not just the management
gurus – it was Charles Kingsley who famously
brought us in his children’s classic The Water
Babies, the character Mrs Do-As-You-Would-
Be-Done-By, an epithet one too often finds
oneself thinking about after an unfortunate
event at work which we really should have
handled better.
It is a couple of months since I read this
little gem of a book and I find I can still quote
stories and examples from it, without needing
to look them up, to encourage my friends
and colleagues to pick this book up and find
enlightenment for themselves. For me that is a
sign of a really useful tool – and I recommend
it most highly for your bookshelf for that reason
alone.
NEXT SECTION
take control
of your future
Professional development is often a
function associated with the human resources
department. But taking personal responsibility
for your professional development is crucial in
the current competitive employment market
and ever changing workplace.
So what can you do to keep up with
new technologies and trends and remain at
the forefront of industry best practice in your
profession? A professional development plan
is a great place to start and the beginning of a
new year is the ideal time to put your plan into
action.
Steps for creating a professional development
plan
A professional development plan can
provide you with the necessary tools to
evaluate, select and review your career
direction. First you need to reflect on what you
already know including formal qualifications,
self-taught skills and life experiences, and
use these as the foundation to build your
professional development plan.
There are four main steps to consider
which will provide the framework for your
professional development plan:
1. Set goals
Let’s start with the basics. Begin by
developing a roadmap to keep yourself on track
with your professional development. Include
long-term goals but be sure to incorporate
short-term goals and monthly targets as
practical stepping stones along the way.
Write down personal, professional and career
goals that are specific, measurable and can
realistically be achieved. It is generally best
to focus on a few goals each year so you will
need to decide which goals are most important
for the current year.
2. Identify opportunities
Now it’s time to identify any additional
training, educational requirements or skills you
need to meet your goals. It pays to do your
research and be prepared to put forward a case
to your manager if you are seeking support for
a course or study from your employer. Some
examples of professional development activities
include:
® Formal training e.g. study
® Self-directed learning e.g. reading industry
publications, research
® Networking
® On-the-job training or coaching by a senior
colleague
® Adding new work or increasing your
current level of responsibility
® Joining professional associations and/or
committees
Once you have decided on the professional
development activities you wish to pursue and
have set your goals for the current year, you
will need to decide how you wish to proceed.
3. Put your plan into action
To ensure the success of your professional
development plan, you must decide what
actions you will take to accomplish your goals
and when you will do each step. The best
way to do this is to record the information
in a written professional development plan.
You might like to create a spreadsheet with
columns to record goals you will address this
year. Sample headings may include goals;
strategies; timeline; evidence of progress; date
goal is met and future goals/plans.
If a professional development plan is not
a formal part of your annual review as an
employee, you should take the time to discuss
your plan with your manager so they are aware
of your personal and professional goals and
can play an active role in helping you achieve
them.
4. Review progress
The final step in your professional
development plan is to schedule time for
review. Re-evaluating your goals and actions
allows you to make adjustments and to see
if your desired outcomes are being achieved.
Break down your areas of development for a
calendar year into sections, then nominate a
day each month to review your progress and
make adjustments as necessary. This will
ensure you keep on track and achieve your
career goals.
Benefits of planning
A professional development plan can help
give you the direction and focus you need.
Implementing the framework outlined above
will help give you personal ownership of your
career direction and achieve your professional
goals.
Not only will a professional development
plan help you clarify your personal and
professional goals and objectives, it will
also help you identify your competencies,
interests and abilities. It may require some
self-discipline but those who make the effort
and take ownership for their professional
development will reap the rewards!
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