Development Plans Administration - Overview

Development Plans allow users to create plans and manage their growth and development as an employee. Customized development plans allow administrators and managers to more accurately capture the user's strengths, weaknesses, objectives, and resources needed. Users can create objectives which consist of training items from the LMS and free-form, job-related action steps. After creation, users can view and manage those components to track progress.

To access Development Plans, go to Admin > Performance Management. The Development Plan section contains all of the development plan options.

The development plan process is dependent upon an organization's performance management configuration. In its simplest form, there are three main steps:

User creates a development plan.
User submits the development plan for approval.
The approver approves the plan.

You can also allow users to create development plans that do not require a manager's approval. In addition, managers can create and assign a development plan to a user.

If you use the Competency Management functionality, development plans can be created for a user based on a competency assessment, which can then be modified by the user before submitting the plan for approval.

Development Plan Statuses

The workflow that defines statuses for development plans that require approval is different from the workflow for development plans that do not require approval. Both types are provided in the following tables.

Development Plans That Do Not Require Approval

Status	Definition
Draft	A plan is created and saved, but has not been submitted. If a user submits the plan, the status is changed to In Progress.
In Progress	A plan is created and submitted, but the plan is not yet complete and has not yet reached the due date. If a user edits the plan and removes the items that are incomplete, the status is changed to Complete. If a user edits the due date of a plan, the status can change to Past Due.
Past Due	A plan is not yet complete, and the due date has passed. If a user edits the due date of a plan, the status can change to In Progress or Complete.
Cancelled	The plan is cancelled.
Complete	All action steps have 100% progress and all training items are marked as complete. If a user creates a plan that consists solely of training that is already complete, the plan status is Complete. With recurring training, if a recurring item within a dev plan is complete, the status is locked as complete and will not reset when the training recurs.

Development Plans That Require Approval

Status	Definition
Draft	A plan is created and saved, but has not been submitted. If a user submits the plan, the status is changed to Pending Acceptance Approval.
In Progress	A plan is created and approved, but the plan is not yet complete and has not yet reached the due date. If a user edits the plan and removes the items that are incomplete, the plan can be submitted for completion approval. If a user edits the due date of a plan, once approved, the status can change to Past Due.
Past Due	A plan is not yet complete, cancelled, or is in a Pending status, and the due date has passed. If a user edits the due date of a plan, once approved, the status can change to In Progress.
Cancelled	The plan is submitted for cancellation and receives approval.
Complete	All action steps have 100% progress, all training items are marked as complete, and the plan has received completion approval. If a user creates a plan that consists solely of training that is already complete, once approved, the plan is In Progress. The plan can then be submitted for completion approval. With recurring training, if a recurring item within a dev plan is complete, the status is locked as complete and will not reset when the training recurs.
Pending Acceptance Approval	A plan has been submitted for approval, but has yet to receive approval.
Pending Cancellation Approval	A plan has been cancelled, but has yet to receive cancellation approval.
Pending Completion Approval	In a plan, all action steps are at 100% progress, all training items are marked as complete, and it has been submitted for completion approval, but has not yet received approval.
Acceptance Denied	A plan is submitted for approval and is denied, but is not yet resubmitted for approval. Once the plan is edited in any way, the status changes to Pending Acceptance Approval.
Completion Approval Denied	A plan is submitted for completion approval and is denied. Once the plan is edited in any way, the status changes to Pending Acceptance Approval or Past Due.

Development Plan Approval

Development plan approval requires another user (manager or approver) to approve a development plan. Because managers and approvers may change, as can the preferences that require approval, the following table outlines situations that may arise as well as the corresponding approval behavior.

Situation	Behavior
User's Approver Changes	If the user's development plan is already approved, the user is not affected. If has a dev plan that is not yet approved, the previous approver is no longer responsible for approval, and the approval request is moved to the new approver's list of plans to approve.
User's Approver is Removed	Any development plan requiring approval is automatically approved.
Preference that Requires Approval is Removed	Any development plan requiring approval is automatically approved.
Preference that Requires Approval is Added	Any dev plan that is in progress remains in progress. Only newly created plans require approval.

Options to Create Development Plans

Dev Plan Type	Created By	Notable Features
Output from competency assessment - suggested menu of options	User/Manager	Dev plan actions are mapped to competencies. Users view a menu of suggested training and development suggestions that are based on their competency assessment scores. User chooses items from the list to populate a development plan. Users/Managers can add additional items to plan also.
Free Form (from scratch)	User/Manager	Users essentially begin with a blank page and add whatever objectives and action steps they deem appropriate. May add items from training catalog or free-form non-training action steps.
Template-Based	User/Manager	Pre-loaded by administrator with standard objectives and development actions. User can add to, edit or delete items to customize the dev plan.
Free Form with suggestions from competency model	User/Manager	Dev plan actions are mapped to competencies. Users creating a free-form dev plan can add suggested training from a competency model. This allows them to view and select items from a list of all dev plan suggestions mapped to competencies of a given model.
Output from performance review - with competency section	Manager	Dev plan actions are mapped to competencies. Competencies are pulled into a performance review as a review section. As managers rate each competency they can view and select dev plan steps associated with each competency and accumulate them into a list of items to be added to the employee dev plan upon completion of the performance review. Managers can also access the entire training catalog (loaded to portal) from with in the review, to add additional training to dev plan. Following creation of the dev plan, users and managers can add to and delete items from the dev plan.
Output from succession planning/talent assessment task	Manager	Managers can access the entire training catalog (loaded to portal) during an SMP assessment task to add items to dev plan. Following creation of the dev plan, users and managers can add to and delete items from the plan.
Output from competency assessment - auto-created	System	Dev plan actions are mapped to competencies and automatically populate starter development plans for users based on their competency assessment scores. Users/Managers can add to, edit, or delete items to customize plan.