Once you've reflected on your goals and made a personal commitment, the next step is to develop an action plan—a practical, step-by-step guide to help you move forward with clarity and purpose.
It is time to create a structured, realistic roadmap for your development that supports your personal goals and RPI’s mission.
An action plan turns your intentions into achievable milestones. It identifies the skills you want to build, experiences you want to pursue, and the support or resources you’ll need along the way. It also helps you set timelines, prioritize efforts, and track progress.
Individual Career Development Plan (IDP)
Start with the Individual Career Development Plan (IDP).
The IDP is a structured roadmap that helps you formalize career goals, assess current skills, and outline actionable steps to achieve professional growth. The plan supports a collaborative process involving you and your supervisor which is intended to enhance your professional growth and RPI’s organizational initiatives by:
- Setting goals and identifying activities which facilitate learning and development in important competency areas needed for current and future individual success.
- Identifying individual strengths, talents, and interests, and planning ways to use them on the job.
- Aligning development activities with RPI’s strategic initiatives.
Additional Tools and Resources
Understanding RPI Forward is a key step in shaping your own career path. It provides insight into the Institute’s priorities, future direction, and areas of growth—helping you align your skills and goals with where the organization is headed. By connecting your individual development plan to these broader objectives, you can identify meaningful opportunities to contribute, build relevant capabilities, and position yourself for long-term success.
Leveraging the RPI MAX process as a foundation for career development helps turn feedback into forward momentum.
Develop specific and measurable goals with your supervisor that support your career development objectives and align with the business need. Utilize the check in periods to review progress and adjust if needed.
RPI’s core competencies outline the skills, knowledge, abilities, and behaviors required to successfully perform a specific job or role and accomplish established goals. Take time to understand the three sets of Core Competencies which are based on job category.
SMART is an acronym to help create clear, actionable, and achievable goals. Using this framework increases the likelihood of success by ensuring goals are well-defined and measurable.
SMART Goal Example: “Increase Percipio module utilization specific to RPI’s core competency areas from 500 to 800/month in 6 months by publishing two posts per month in Morning Mail and promoting via appropriate websites.”
- Specific: Increase module utilization
- Measurable: From 500 to 800/month
- Achievable: Two posts per month is manageable
- Relevant: Supports both individual and organizational growth
- Time-bound: Within 6 months
To learn more about SMART goal setting, consider viewing the Percipio Learning Channel “Setting Goals” at: https://share.percipio.com/cd/oS-qbenrs
