Managing development strategies

It is often a challenge for a manager to find the time to manage each member of their team’s development programme. Ideally, the team will self-manage to some extent, but getting people to the stage where they are able to do this takes time and effort, particularly if it has not been the norm in the past.

Using an appraisal process to keep development up to date is the best base to work from. However, to keep each person’s development monitored it is essential that regular ‘check-ins’ take place and this means careful diary use by the manager to ensure that a member of the team is not left to drift.

Regular informal ‘one to one’s’ are an ideal means of keeping up to speed – and this doesn’t mean a two-hour meeting with each member of the team every month. If team members have a specific goal and a time frame for achievement, the monitoring discussions can be put in both diaries for review. There might be just a ‘how is it going?’ chat for ten minutes during the interim periods, with a review at the stated deadline.

As most people’s objectives will vary in time-scale, this should spread meetings reasonably well over a period of time and not result in weeks where nothing except monitoring meetings takes place.

Encouraging people to come to you when help is needed is a good strategy, but beware of those who ‘don’t like to bother you’ and will struggle on until everything comes to a grinding halt. Having either an open door policy or a daily open door time slot when people can come and talk and expect the manager to have time to listen is often a good means of dealing with potential problem areas. However, a good manager keeps their eyes and ears open and is proactive in tackling potential problems before they reach boiling point.