Getting Started
Identify your goals
To get started, you will need to ask yourself:
- Where am I now?
- Where do I want to be?
- Which is the best way to get there?
- How do I ensure that i achieve my objectives
Set yourself specific targets. Consider short, medium and long term goals. These should be balanced to include:
- immediate job requirements
- business and career aspirations
- personal targets
- family and personal circumstances
Determine the skills you need
To achieve your objectives, you need to acquire specific knowledge, skills and competencies.
Having set your goals, prioritise them. Understand yourself, consider how you learn best and choose the type of learning activities that will be the most effective for you. There are various ways of learning such as learning on the job and from colleagues, studying privately and attending courses.
Create an Action Plan
When drawing up your plan, think about who may be able to help you in your development; your employer, colleagues or possibly a mentor. IGEM also provides activities offering opportunities to network with other professionals working in the gas industry.
Candidates for Professional Review will be expected to show how their recent development has been planned and how they intend to continue their development.
Translating your goals into specific competencies
If one of your goals is to move into a new position, you will need to analyse what competencies are required for it. Relevant job specifications may provide useful information. If your goal is to improve your performance in your current role, you will need to determine those aspects of competence you need to enhance.
It takes time to develop competencies - we are all competent to different levels of expertise in different areas. You may wish to develop some of these competencies to a very high level, while it may not be important to improve others.
To remain competent in a particular area, you need to use that knowledge with its associated skills regularly or you may lose proficiency.