“A sprint is a short, time-boxed period when a scrum team works to complete a set amount of work.” - Atlassian

“A development sprint is a time-boxed period when an employee works to complete a set number of goals to learn and develop.” - Talbit

What is Agile Development Plan?

Previously, we have discussed the OKR-framework and how you can succeed in your strategy by making it concrete, connectable, measurable, and transparent. The Company and Team level OKRs thus were built. The next level is the personal level where the learning and development happen, and we call it the Agile Development Plan.

It is all about continuous development, keeping the focus on things that matter, getting support when needed, and learning through coaching and feedback. To successfully run an Agile Development Plan, you need to pay attention to 4 components as follows:

What to highlight?

The Agile Development Plan is the modern and future version of performance reviews and development discussion. It happens between an employee and coach, with the employee in charge. The coach can be anyone in the organization, your team lead or peer, or a senior colleague from another team. The main thing is that the coach is someone who can advise, challenge, communicate, and support. Just like any coach would do.

On average, a Plan contains 1-3 goals, broken down into 3-5 milestones, and is somewhere from 3-6 months long. BUT, this varies. One employee has 1 goal and a 3-month olan, while another can have 4 goals with a 5-month plan. You can choose whatever rocks your boat, helps you focus, and keeps you developing those strategic skills and competencies.

Agile Development Plan Example

In our previous example, the Finnish company was planning to expand to Sweden and needed to make sure they succeed in many aspects, and having a strong presence in Social Media is one. As a marketing team member, I am interested in broadening my SEM and SEO skills and taking responsibility for Nordics LinkedIn and Twitter social media marketing. My agile sprint thus is as follows:

Goal creation

When creating personal goals, things to keep in mind are to be specific and clear. Clear goals help you, and your team members understand what you're working on. It also needs to reflect what you want to improve or achieve during the development sprint. Think about it as a lighthouse that guides your direction.

Related: How to create Personal Development Plan at Work Guide

As my goal is broadening my SEM and SEO skills and taking responsibility for Nordics LinkedIn and Twitter social media marketing, I can name my goal as below:

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After linking the Goal (the Employee's Objective) to Company or Team's KR, you can select the listed skills and/or search skills related to that given Goal.

Your personal goal in Talbit will look like this once created. The next step is adding milestones. Milestones are actions that you need to execute to achieve your goals. Breaking down goals into small bite-sized milestones makes it easier to implement and stick to the plan.

Once the Milestones have been added, the forward-looking goal looks as follows:

Coach & 1-on-1 meetings

One of the main feature in Talbit is adding a coach or peer to personal development plan. After creating goals, in the next phase, you enter the coach that will support you on the growth and the dates for the 1:1 -meetings. It is important to have at least 1 meeting per month.

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Once that is done and the sprint started, you will have a forward-looking, step-by-step, agile development plan.

Does this look like a plan to success? We sure think it does! Get in touch with the Talbit Team if you need any assistance in setting up your sprints.

You can also download Part 3 of Talbit 101 Series here.