IDP: Frequently Asked Questions

Your Individual Development Plan is a planning tool serving as a roadmap for your professional training. Through specific questions and tasks, it helps you to identify strengths and interests, supports your self-reflection, and defines specific actions toward achieving your career goals.

It is easy to get distracted, to loose motivation and to run out of time during the three, four or even more years of doctoral training. Your personal Individual Development Plan can help you to keep on track during this challenging time. Similar to a logbook, you will record developmental steps in the IDP and you can utilize this self-reflective documentation for an ipsative assessment later on. It is meant to accompany a dynamic process where you monitor your personal progress in relation to previous performance.

The IDP consists of specific standardized questions and tasks structuring the documentation, first, of your achievements, skills and goals; and, second, of future actions that you define to improve your development. You may use the IDP then to foster the communication with your supervisor(s), to identify and to reflect on your competencies as well as capabilities by working through its subjects. Very importantly, you can alter the IDP, e.g. when interests change, career objectives shift or skills develop. The IDP is a proactive and ongoing planning that helps you set goals to follow the career path that fits you best.

Individual Development Plans are widespread in professional companies supporting employees. For academia, the U.S. Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology adapted this concept in 2002, and in 2014 the National Institute of Health (USA) implemented even a mandatory reporting of IDPs. All of this started a movement among higher education institutions there – e.g. at Stanford and Harvard University as well as at the MIT. As a result, the IDP format is now widely used as an effective career development tool of academia in Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian countries.

Conducting a nuanced assessment of your capabilities early on can help you to pursue your desired career paths. The Individual Development Plan documents the status quo and provides a framework for the discussion with supervisors and others on how to proceed. The cliché that if you fail to plan, you plan to fail, does not always hold true, of course. However, it certainly is a wise idea to start communicating about future career prospects. We hope that the IDP helps you in that sense, or rather serves as a support tool for your own professional development.

For most doctoral researchers the Individual Development Plan is a voluntary option. You are highly encouraged to make use of it and to discuss your professional development with your supervisor(s), mentors, colleagues and potential panel members.

However, depending on your institutional ties, it might be in some cases (e.g. doctoral researchers of the QURS) that you are obliged to complete an IDP and to discuss it with your supervisor(s) at least once a year. Please contact the coordinator of your graduate school if you have any further questions in this respect or send your inquiry to probe.min"AT"uni-hamburg.de.

Yes, it is never too late to think about your achievements, opportunities and goals. The Individual Development Plan consists of three separate parts covering the first three to four years of your doctorate. Depending on your doctoral research phase, you may skip individual parts of the single PDF-file encompassing all content. In the third and all remaining years of your doctorate, you may use the last part of the IDP booklet repeatedly.

For most doctoral researchers at the MIN Faculty the Individual Development Plan is a voluntary option. Nevertheless, we highly recommend you to discuss the IDP with your supervisor(s). The IDP might be a great door opener for regular conversations about career planning or skill development. Moreover, the IDP can help you to formalize and to structure these important feedback sessions.

Please note that the IDP is a mandatory requirement for doctoral researchers at the QURS and needs to be shared with the advisory panel.

In short, the Individual Development Plan focusses on your personal career development, whereas panel reports concentrate on the progress of the research project. However, it might be that certain questions recur, because your career development including a successful dissertation and the research project, are intertwined. Most importantly, your supervisor(s) have usually a dual role as both project leader and mentor. Supervision agreements try to specify the rights and duties of doctoral researcher and supervisor(s) in this respect in order to reduce possible conflict.

Particularly in the beginning, you might experience a feeling of uneasiness, when you have difficulties in answering certain subjects of the Individual Development Plan. However, almost all of them will come up eventually during your doctorate and it is advisable to consider these things right from the start. Do not wait until the very last moment. You can train your ability to pay attention for your future!

Your Individual Development Plan may specify vague ideas and by this clarification, the IDP can accelerate your motivation to finalize your doctorate in a timely manner and to take the next career step, confidently. You should communicate this - maybe your supervisor is not aware of this positive effect. Another good argument is that the IDP helps supervisors to formalize complex (and sometimes complicated) conversations about career or skill development.

In the end, it is important that you don’t avoid your supervisor even when you get negative feedback. In addition, you should also seek advice from others (mentors, peers, family).

The MINGS offers in addition a print version of the Individual Development Plan in an A4 booklet format. If you are interested in this or if you have questions and/or comments regarding the IDP publication in general, please contact: probe.min"AT"uni-hamburg.de.