Mgr Individual Development Plan

---
name: mgr-individual-development-plan
description: Turns a career conversation into an individual development plan the person drafts and owns, with one or two development goals, on-the-job experiences, learning, manager support and review dates. Use for "run mgr-individual-development-plan", "individual development plan", "IDP for my report", "career development plan", "turn our career talk into a plan", "development goals for my team member", "growth plan that actually happens", part of the AI for Managers Pack by Polar Bear.
---

# Individual Development Plan (IDP)

## When To Use
A career conversation needs to turn into something that happens. You talked about growth, everyone nodded, and three months later nothing has moved. It answers: what will this person do, learn and try, with what help from you, and by when?

## When Not To Use
If a documented gap in the current job persists after informal talks, that is Performance Improvement Plan (PIP), not an IDP. If you have not yet talked about direction, start with Career Conversation.

## Inputs
- Notes from the career conversation, or what the person said they want to grow into
- The person's own first draft, if they have one (better than yours)
- Team goals the growth could link to, and what you can offer (time, projects, introductions)
If you have none of this, I start from one sentence on where they want to grow and mark the output as a first draft for them to rewrite.

## Approach
The IDP as a partnership, not an evaluation, as set out by the US Office of Personnel Management ("Career Development"): the employee and supervisor build it together, with goals, development objectives and dated activities, and it is not a performance evaluation tool. The judgment is keeping it small and real. The failure mode: a plan that becomes a training shopping list of five courses, none linked to anything the person does on Monday.

## Workflow
1. Ask: what did the person say they want to grow into? Has the person drafted anything yet? What can you really offer in time, work and access?
2. Hand the pen over. If the person has not drafted, produce a short prompt sheet for them to fill in, not a finished plan. The manager adds support afterwards.
3. Goals: one or two only, one shorter term and one longer term, each with a date and the words the person used. If there are four, ask which two matter most.
4. Link each goal to a team or organisation goal where it genuinely fits; leave the link blank rather than forcing one.
5. Activities in this order: experiences on the job first (a project, a stretch task, covering a meeting), then learning (a course, reading), then people to learn from. Each with a date.
6. Manager support: time protected, access, introductions, removed blockers, each with who and when. Set review dates in the rhythm the person and manager choose.
7. Scan the draft and remove any rating, performance score or appraisal comment that crept in.

## Output Format
```markdown
# Individual Development Plan
**Person:** [name] · **Drafted by:** [name] · **Manager:** [name] · **Date:** [date] · **Reviews:** [dates]
## Development goals
| Goal (their words) | Term | Links to | Target date |
|---|---|---|---|
| [goal] | Shorter | [team goal, or none] | [date] |
| [goal] | Longer | [team goal, or none] | [date] |
## Activities
| Goal | Type | Activity | By when |
|---|---|---|---|
| [goal] | Experience on the job | [project or task] | [date] |
| [goal] | Learning | [course or resource] | [date] |
| [goal] | People to learn from | [name or role] | [date] |
## Support from the manager
| Support | Who | By when |
|---|---|---|
| [time, access or introduction] | [manager name] | [date] |
## Decision
[name] agrees the final goals by [date]; [manager name] commits the support listed and books the first review for [date].
```

## Done When
- The person drafted the goals, or has a prompt sheet to draft them
- No more than two goals, each dated, with experiences on the job before courses
- Every support line names the manager and a date, and review dates are set

## Quality Bar
- Written in the person's words; no performance data, ratings or appraisal language inside the plan
- Learning items are real and available, never invented course names
- The plan is shared with the person, who can edit it
- A development plan is not an evaluation; Claude never adds ratings to it.

## Next
Run mgr-stay-interview (Stay Interview) to check what keeps the person here.

## About the makers

This pack is made by Polar Bear, a consultancy built by ex-McKinsey founders with a dream to make AI work for People, not instead of them. We help our clients build people systems and AI-first ways of working, and we run our own company on Claude. If your team has outgrown the self-serve version, message Pauline (linkedin.com/in/paulinebertry).