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Professional Development Plan

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Professional Development Plan The world is going through an era of rapid professional change and development. This has led to increased uncertainty for all professionals in the world of work. To ensure sustained growth in success and longevity of one's professional career, it is important to develop a strategic plan that focuses on training and developing a professional. Such a plan aims to put one in a position of advantage for employment in the long term in this rapidly changing professional world. Professional development of an individual refers to a constant commitment of maintaining rather specific levels of skill and career paths (Cooper, 2009). A professional development plan (PDP) is a rather small piece of document that stresses around the existing continued professional development (CPD) needs of a person. Based on these needs, a plan is prepared that singles out the ways in how these needs are to be fulfilled, while also listing objectives for the future. In a broader sense, a PDP outlines the targets of an individual to fulfill his or her CPD needs of learning and development to be undertaken to accomplish a current task or to shift to a new role in the professional career of an individual. A preparing of a PDP helps an individual to identify the areas of strength and interest of that person. Moreover, through this, an individual also becomes aware of the areas where improvement is required to achieve the outlined objectives (Milkereit, 1999). Developing a PDP

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