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INDIVIDUAL DEVELOPMENT PLANS

What is an individual development plan?

An IDP is a structured roadmap that turns competency gaps into concrete development actions, typically organized using the 70/20/10 framework. Here's how to build one your team will actually use.

By Simon CarviPublished April 202612 min read

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THE BASICS

What is an individual development plan?

An individual development plan (IDP) is a structured agreement between an employee and their manager that translates assessment results into specific development actions over a defined period — usually a quarter, a half-year, or a full development cycle.

Unlike a performance review, which looks backward at what an employee has already delivered, an IDP looks forward. It is grounded in two questions: which competencies matter most for the role this person is in (or aspires to) — and how do we close the gap between current ability and required ability?

A good IDP is gap-driven, prioritized, and measurable. It does not list every weakness or every aspiration. It identifies the two or three competency gaps that will have the biggest impact on performance, then commits to a small number of concrete actions for each. The framework most teams use to structure those actions is 70/20/10 — and we'll walk through it in detail below.

BUSINESS VALUE

Why IDPs matter

The cost of un-targeted training

Most organizations spend a meaningful share of their L&D budget on training that nobody follows up on. A workshop happens, the certificate goes in a drawer, and three months later the gap that triggered the training is still there. The reason is rarely the quality of the content. The reason is that the training was not anchored to a specific gap, a specific behavior change, or a specific person.

What an IDP forces up front

An IDP changes the economics of development by forcing three things to happen up front:

  • 1A measurable starting point — the competency assessment that established the gap
  • 2A specific target — the level the role requires, not a vague aspiration
  • 3A plan with owners and deadlines — not a wishlist

From cost to investment

When these three things are in place, development stops being a cost center and starts looking like an investment with a measurable return. The competency that was at level 2 is now at level 3.5. The skill gap that blocked promotion is closed. The capability the team needed to ship a new product is in place. None of that happens by accident, and none of it happens from a one-off training day. It happens because someone wrote it down, made it specific, and checked in on progress — which is exactly what Huneety's IDP module is built to automate from the assessment data it already has.

THE PROCESS

How to build an IDP step by step

Building an IDP is not complicated, but the order matters. Skip a step and the plan becomes a wishlist. Six steps:

AT A GLANCE

What an IDP actually looks like

Here's a real example — a project manager whose career path target is Senior PM (level 4), with a critical gap in project management. The graph below shows how the career target, competency gap, priority, and 70/20/10 action plan all connect. Click any node to see how it fits into the bigger picture.

Career path targetSenior PM · level 4Project managementLevel 2 → 4 (gap 2.0)P1 prioritytechnical skill · critical gap70% on the job2 stretch assignments20% through othersinternal expert network10% formalcompany library2 stretch assignmentstime-bound · trackedCompany expertsinternal PM networkBrowse library ↗project managementOwn a full project8 weeksRun a risk review4 weeksPM mentoringexpert + group reviewPM Fundamentals6h · videoAgile DeliveryplaybookClick any node to explore

Click any node in the graph to see how it connects the career path target to a concrete weekly action.

THE FRAMEWORK

The 70/20/10 development framework

The 70/20/10 framework is the most widely used structure for organizing development activities. It originated from research at the Center for Creative Leadership by Morgan McCall, Robert Eichinger, and Michael Lombardo in the 1980s, who studied how successful executives reported having actually learned the skills that mattered. Their finding: roughly 70% from challenging on-the-job experiences, 20% from interactions with others, and 10% from formal coursework or reading.

The percentages are not laws of physics — they are heuristics. The point is the relative weight: most development comes from doing real work that is slightly beyond your current ability, supported by people who can give you feedback, with formal training as a small but specific complement. Each tab below explains what this looks like in practice.

70% — On-the-job experiences

This is where most real development happens. The mechanism is simple: people are placed in situations where their current skills are insufficient, they are given enough support to not fail catastrophically, and they figure it out. Stretch assignments, leading a project for the first time, owning a new client, presenting to a new audience, working in a new function for a quarter — all of these are 70% activities.

The most common mistake here is assuming that someone's current job is the development opportunity. It usually is not. The job is the place where they already perform. Development comes from work that is meaningfully different from what they do today. If you cannot identify a stretch in the current role, the IDP needs a job design conversation, not more training.

BY ROLE

IDP examples by role

What an IDP actually looks like depends on the role and the gap. The four examples below show a single priority competency, the gap, and a 70/20/10 plan with specific actions, owners, and deadlines. Click an activity to mark it complete — these are interactive demos.

Individual Development Plan

Priya Mehta · Marketing Manager

In Progress
On the job(70%)

Lead the Q3 brand reposition launch as primary stakeholder owner

Sep 30

Present quarterly marketing results to the C-suite (own the deck)

Oct 15
Through others(20%)

Bi-weekly 1:1 coaching with the VP Marketing

ongoing→ Helen R.
Training(10%)

Communicating with Executives (1-day workshop)

Aug 20

PITFALLS

Common IDP mistakes

Most failed IDPs fail in the same six ways. None of these are obscure — they are the predictable failure modes of a process that is easy to start and easy to abandon. A structured IDP workflow prevents most of them by default, but the antidotes are the same regardless of tool.

  1. Too many priorities

    Five priorities is no priorities. The point of the plan is to pick the two or three competency gaps that matter most and accept that the others are not getting attention this cycle. If the plan tries to fix everything, nothing gets fixed.

  2. Training-only plans

    If the IDP is a list of courses with no on-the-job experiences and no mentoring, it is not an IDP — it is a learning catalog. Real development needs the 70% and the 20% to do most of the work.

  3. No baseline assessment

    Without a competency assessment, there is no objective gap, just an opinion. The plan ends up reflecting whoever is loudest in the development conversation, not where the actual capability deficit is.

  4. Vague targets

    "Improve communication" is not a target. "Reach level 3.5 in stakeholder communication by Q3" is. Without a measurable target, you have no way to know if the plan worked.

  5. No manager involvement

    An IDP that the employee writes alone and the manager skims is theatre. The manager has to commit to making the stretch assignments, the introductions, and the coaching time available — otherwise the plan cannot be executed.

  6. Set it and forget it

    An IDP that is not reviewed quarterly is a document. The point of the plan is the cadence of check-ins, adjustments, and progress signals — not the document itself.

HUNEETY IDP

How Huneety builds IDPs from assessment data

Huneety automates the path from assessment to action plan. The output is the same gap → priority → 70/20/10 structure described above — rendered as a live, trackable plan instead of a Word doc. The card below is the actual interactive plan view from the product.

Individual Development Plan

Sarah Chen · Product Lead

In Progress
On the job(70%)

Lead the Q3 cross-team initiative

Jul 15

Own the next quarterly business review

Sep 30
Through others(20%)

Bi-weekly 1:1 with VP Strategy

ongoing→ Marcus L.
Training(10%)

Strategic Leadership 101

Jun 30

  • Gap-driven by default

    Every IDP starts from real assessment data. No guessing, no opinion. The gaps are the gaps.

  • AI-suggested 70/20/10 actions

    Huna AI suggests on-the-job, peer-learning, and training activities matched to each priority gap.

  • Manager approval workflow

    Draft → Pending → Active → Archived. The manager owns the validation step before the plan goes live.

  • Quarterly check-in cadence

    Built-in review cycle so the plan doesn't end up in a drawer. Progress signals roll up to skills analytics.

See Huneety's IDP module →

AUDIENCES

Who uses individual development plans

IDPs sit in two very different operating contexts. Both groups use the same underlying structure, but the deployment model and the value drivers are different.

HR Teams

HR teams use IDPs as the connective tissue between annual assessments, L&D budget, and talent reviews. The plan is the artifact that proves development is happening — and the data the plans generate is what justifies next year's budget.

See it for HR teams

HR Consultants

Consultants use IDPs as a scalable deliverable. After a 360 assessment project, every assessed employee gets a structured IDP — branded, defensible, and tied to the assessment data the consultant just delivered.

See it for consultants

GO DEEPER

Explore the IDP cluster

Four subtopic guides go deeper on the parts of the IDP process that most teams ask about.

70/20/10 Framework

The history, the research, and a practical guide to balancing the three categories in real plans.

IDP Templates

Free downloadable IDP templates by role — manager, IC, technical leader, first-time manager.

Gap Analysis for IDPs

How to translate assessment results into the two or three priority gaps that anchor every plan.

IDPs for Managers

Writing development plans for people who manage people. Scorecards, execution dimensions, and the link to succession planning.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

The questions teams ask most often when they start using IDPs.

70/20/10 is a heuristic for how people develop new capabilities: roughly 70% from challenging on-the-job experiences, 20% from learning through others (mentors, peers, coaches), and 10% from formal training. It originated from research at the Center for Creative Leadership in the 1980s and is the most widely used framework for structuring an IDP.
A PIP is a corrective document used when an employee is underperforming against their current role expectations. An IDP is a development document used to grow capabilities — usually for employees who are performing well and the organization wants to invest in. PIPs look backward at what is wrong; IDPs look forward at what is next.
Both. The strongest plans are co-created. The employee owns the aspirations and the actions; the manager owns the realism check, the on-the-job opportunities, and the validation. An IDP that the employee writes alone or that the manager imposes alone tends not to get executed.
Two or three competency gaps, no more. Plans with five or more priorities consistently fail to make progress on any of them. The discipline of picking the top two or three is the most important part of the planning process.
Most organizations run IDPs on a six-month or annual cycle, with quarterly progress check-ins. The cycle length should match how long it realistically takes to move a competency by half a level — typically two to four quarters depending on the complexity of the gap.
Re-assess the competency at the end of the cycle. If the gap closed (or narrowed), the plan worked. This is why baseline assessment data is non-negotiable — without a starting point, there is no way to demonstrate progress or quantify return on the development investment.
Yes, but with caveats. Any structured assessment that produces a competency level for the employee will work — a self-and-manager evaluation, a project-based assessment, or even a focused 1:1 calibration. The point is to have a real number, not a feeling.

Ready to build IDPs your team will actually use?

Huneety turns assessment data into structured 70/20/10 plans — with manager workflows, progress tracking, and quarterly cadence built in.

See Huneety's IDP moduleBook a demo