Individual Development Plan for Strategists: Template and Example

The plan that was filed in January

Picture a development plan signed in January. Goal one: attend a strategic leadership course. Goal two: improve executive presence. Goal three: read two books on strategy. The manager signs it, HR files it, and nobody opens it again until next January, when it is copied forward with the course name changed.

Nothing on it was wrong. Nothing on it could change the person either, because every line describes an input. None says what the strategist will be able to do in June that they cannot do now, or which piece of real work will prove it.

An individual development plan (IDP) is a short written agreement between you and your manager about the skills you will build, how, and by when. The U.S. Office of Personnel Management, which publishes guidance and a template for federal employees, describes it as a tool to help employees pursue their development goals and stresses that it is not a performance evaluation tool or a one-time activity ¹.

For a strategist, the useful version is narrower than most templates. A development plan changes a strategist only when it names one gap and one real assignment that tests it. Courses can support the plan; the assignment is the plan.

A development plan made of courses is a reading list with a signature line.

What the plan is for

OPM lists the core elements of an IDP: an employee profile, short- and long-term career goals with target dates, development objectives linked to the work unit's goals and the employee's needs, the activities the employee will pursue, and signatures from both employee and supervisor ¹. It calls the plan a partnership between employee and supervisor, built on preparation and continuous feedback ¹.

One detail is telling. OPM notes that there are no regulatory requirements mandating IDPs across the federal government ¹. Even where they are encouraged, they work only if both people treat them as useful. A plan written to satisfy a process gets the January treatment.

The strategist's version below keeps OPM's structure and adds three things most templates leave out: a decision you want to be closer to, the evidence of where you stand now, and the work you will give up to make room. Without the third, the plan competes with your day job and loses.

The template

Ten fields. Fill them in on the page with the builder, or copy the table into a document. A field you cannot fill is a finding, usually that the gap is still too vague.

End with both signatures, the date, and the date of the first check-in, no more than six weeks out.

How to fill it in

1. Start from the decision, not the job titleWrite field 2 first. “Strategy manager” is a title; “bringing the executive team to a choice on a market entry” is a decision. The decision tells you which skills matter. Our career path explorer helps if you are unsure which part of a decision you want to be closest to.
2. Find the gap from evidenceRate yourself on what you could show someone, not on how a skill feels. The strategist skills matrix works this way, and the strategic thinking self-assessment scores habits by what you did last month. Pick the single weakest skill that matters for field 2.
3. Describe the gap as a behavior“Be more strategic” cannot be tested. “Write a recommendation memo the CFO's team accepts without a rewrite” can. If you cannot picture someone watching you do it, rewrite it.
4. Trade a course for an assignmentFor each course you were going to list, ask which piece of real work would make you use what it teaches. Put the work in field 5. Keep the course only if it makes the work go better.
5. Name the feedback partnerNot your manager by default. The best partner is the person who receives the work: the finance lead who checks your model, the executive who reads your memo. Agree when you will ask.
6. Write the proof and the dateA plan with no date is a wish. Choose evidence a skeptic would accept: a decision taken on your paper, a model finance signed off, a session you facilitated that ended in a choice.
7. Make room, then signWrite down what you will stop. Then agree the plan with your manager and book the first check-in on the same day.

A filled-in example

The person and company below are invented. Notice how each field narrows the next.

Look at field 4. It does not say “I lack confidence in meetings.” It says what happened three times. That evidence is what makes the gap specific enough for one assignment to close.

Why the assignment does the work

The Center for Creative Leadership's 70-20-10 guideline says people tend to learn about 70% from challenging experiences and assignments, 20% from developmental relationships and 10% from coursework and training ². CCL presents it as a guideline drawn from its Lessons of Experience research, and warns that all experiences are not created equal ². Treat the split as a rule of thumb about where to put effort, not as a measurement of you.

The mechanism is easier to defend than the percentages. A course gives you the method in a room where nothing is at stake. An assignment gives you the method plus the two things that make it stick: consequences and a reaction. When the business-unit head defers your decision for the third time, you learn something about running a meeting that no simulation produces. CCL also notes that well-designed training can amplify the learning from the rest ², which is why the course stays in field 7, in a supporting role.

Running development plans for a team

For a head of strategy, the plans of a whole team are a staffing document. The best development assignment for an analyst is often the riskiest staffing choice for the business: the decision session they have never run, the executive they have never briefed. Two second-order problems follow.

• Stretch competes with delivery. When a deadline tightens, the stretch assignment goes back to whoever has done it before, and the plan quietly dies. Decide in advance which assignments are protected and what backup the person gets.
• Plans turn into ratings. If the IDP is reviewed in the same meeting as the performance rating, people write plans they are sure to meet. OPM is explicit that the IDP is not a performance evaluation tool ¹. Keep the conversations apart.

Laid side by side, the team's field 3 entries also show the capability the team is short of. If five of six plans name running decision meetings, that is a hiring or coaching question for you, not five individual gaps.

The strongest objection to all of this is that careers are opportunistic. The best moves come from projects nobody planned, and a written plan goes stale by March. True. But the plan's job is not to predict the opportunity. It is to help you recognize it. When an unexpected project appears, the strategist with a written gap knows in a minute whether it is the stretch they need or a distraction. The plan is a filter, and filters do not go stale.

Before you sign

• Field 2 names a decision, not a title.
• Field 3 is one skill, written as something someone could watch you do.
• Field 4 cites recent, specific examples.
• Field 5 is real work with stakes, not a course.
• Field 6 names a person who receives the work, and a cadence.
• Field 7 has three items or fewer, each tied to the assignment.
• Field 8 has a date and evidence a skeptic would accept.
• Field 9 names something you will stop.
• The first check-in is in the calendar.

Monday morning: write field 4 first, from your last three pieces of work. If the evidence surprises you, it has already done more than most plans do all year.

A plan that lists courses tells you what you attended. A plan built on one assignment tells you, by a date, whether you changed. Only the second one is worth a signature.

Questions

What is an individual development plan?

An individual development plan is a short written agreement between an employee and their manager about the skills to build, how, and by when. OPM describes it as a tool to help employees pursue development goals and a partnership with the supervisor, not a performance evaluation tool or a one-time activity. Its usual elements are career goals, development objectives, activities and both signatures.

What should a strategist put in a development plan?

One skill gap, written as something someone could watch you do; evidence of where you stand now; a real assignment in the next six months that forces you to use the skill; a feedback partner who receives the work; at most three supporting courses or books; proof by a date; and the work you will give up to make room.

Is the 70-20-10 rule backed by research?

The Center for Creative Leadership presents 70-20-10 as a guideline from its Lessons of Experience research: people tend to learn about 70% from challenging assignments, 20% from developmental relationships and 10% from coursework. We treat it as a rule of thumb about where to put effort, not a measured split for any individual, and CCL itself warns that experiences are not all equal.

How often should a development plan be reviewed?

Book the first check-in no more than six weeks after signing, then review at each milestone of the assignment rather than only once a year. That cadence is our rule of thumb. OPM stresses that a plan is not a one-time activity and relies on continuous feedback, which a plan reviewed only in January cannot provide.

Where to go next

• Strategist Skills Matrix
• Strategic Thinking Self-Assessment
• The Strategist's Reading List, Annotated
• Career Development Strategy
• Competency Framework
• GROW Model