Development and Career Planning

SF State values learning and development both professionally and personally. Development and career planning is a rich opportunity for managers and employees to plan for and support an individual's growth and development with an eye toward the department and SF State's current and future needs.

Best Practices

  • Identifies opportunities to contribute to broader organizational priorities
  • Identifies the knowledge, skills, and experience to expand an employee’s contributions and career
  • Incorporates employee interests, preferences, and strengths
  • Creates an Individual Development Plan that identifies and tracks a wide range of development activities
  • Where applicable, incorporates an Individual Career Plan 

Learning and Growth Opportunities

There are many different ways to learn and grow at San Francisco State University. Below are some ideas to incorporate into development planning and learning.

  • Work on department or Institute teams, projects or committee
  • Identify opportunities to learn through job shadowing, cross-training, teamwork, and new assignments
  • Set goals and keep a log for practicing a new behavior or skill
  • Lead team/department discussions about current work projects
  • Give presentations about work projects to colleagues and/or at conferences
  • Propose and organize learning opportunities for others
  • Provide training to colleagues on a topic or skill
  • Organize an Independent Activities Period (IAP) offering
  • Join and be active in trade associations and professional networks related to your field
  • Ask someone – manager, peer, colleague, for feedback on progress towards goals
  • Partner with someone to build skills, share lessons learned, and give and receive feedback
  • Find a mentor, coach, or someone in a job or career of interest to interview
  • Find a subject matter expert and interview them. Ask how they developed their skills.
  • Observe how others effectively demonstrate the behavior or skills you are looking to develop
  • Create a book group by inviting colleagues to read and disucss a relevant book or article

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