CPD23 – Thing 23: Reflection…what next?

Finally, I’ve come to the end of CPD23. It took a lot longer than I intended but I got there. I don’t like to leave a task unfinished so I persevered with it. I do wonder what I’ll have got out of it having taken so long over it.

There were two types of ‘thing’ in the programme: the theoretical, ‘thinky’ things and the more practical, trying out new tools and applications things. I enjoyed both but found that the more theoretical things suited me better at this time; helping me to evaluate my career at the moment which is really useful practice for the reflective thinking I need to be doing for Chartership.  Although I am interested in trying out new tools I found it difficult to fit in the time to try out some of the things, especially without a real purpose for using them – I find it difficult to use practical things in a hypothetical situation. However, doing CPD23 has highlighted some new tools for me to go back and try out more at some time in the future when a genuine need arises.

I already have a personal development plan in the form of my PPDP for Chartership and wrote a SWOT analysis for this. Now I’m halfway through Chartership I should perhaps redo this as a way of re-evaluating my skills at this point. I’m not sure I’d be ready to share these publicly however! I found the process of writing the PPDP for Chartership quite difficult, more as I was unsure of how I would be able to get the opportunities to develop the skills I need due to limited funding for CPD. Doing CPD23 has made me realise how important it is to take the initiative and find inventive ways of developing professionally for free (Katy’s recent blog post on this subject has some really great ideas for this). Using a SWOT analysis to identify skills gaps was certainly a good way to identify key development needs for my PPDP.

And so, my CPD23 experience in 6 words….?

 “Finally finished. Better late than never!”