What is a PDI and how to set one up to organize your studies?

Education / Date: 04-16-2025

The Individual Development Plan (IDP) is essential for organizing your studies according to your goals. It guides the process of acquiring knowledge, skills and attitudes that are aligned with what you want to achieve.

In companies, PDI is used to promote the continuous development of employees. Instead of offering specific training to correct inefficiencies, the approach focuses on comprehensive education throughout the employee's career.

In this content, you will learn how to apply this tool to your study planning. Discover an important facilitator for your success in college and in your professional life!

What is PDI (Individual Development Plan)?

The Individual Development Plan (IDP) is a strategic tool that defines objectives, goals and actions for professional growth. It guides the development of technical and behavioral skills, providing clarity on the steps needed to improve skills.

Technical skills are related to specific knowledge in your field, such as Law, Psychology and Literature. Behavioral skills include skills such as communication, emotional intelligence and resilience, which are essential for success in the workplace.

The PDI organizes this process into a structured plan, with well-defined deadlines and activities , helping you to continuously evolve and achieve your goals efficiently.

How does it work?

The Individual Development Plan (IDP) helps to reduce the gap between the skills you have and those you need to develop .

For example, imagine an Administration professional who needs accounting knowledge at level 3 (from 0 to 5), but is currently at level 0. Based on the PDI, it is possible to draw up a structured plan so that, through learning strategies , he/she can progressively advance to levels 1, 2 and 3.

With well-defined planning, the PDI transforms objectives into practical steps , ensuring continuous professional growth .

How important is it?

Planning will create a roadmap for implementing development tools. This organization will offer several benefits to facilitate skills development.

Identifying strengths and weaknesses

Gaps can be identified from what we need to do to seize opportunities or make corrections.

Setting and achieving goals

The PDI brings transparency to the objectives, establishing specific steps and setting deadlines for execution.

Increased productivity

Resources, effort and focus can be directed to what really matters for results, increasing productivity.

Motivation in studies

The reason for studying becomes clear and accessible, bringing meaning to the effort made towards achieving goals.

Long term vision

The PDI proposes continuous evolution and puts all development strategies, such as courses, readings and lectures on the same page.

How to set up one to organize and scale your studies?

A PDI for studies can be developed in 6 steps :

1. Assess your strengths and weaknesses

The purpose of the IDP is to guide change: different actions need to be taken to achieve new goals. A starting point is to understand your strengths and weaknesses. This will help you determine what can be strengthened and what needs to be corrected.

A good practice is to adopt the SWOT analysis:

strengths;
weaknesses;
opportunities;
threats.

Opportunities and threats relate to the external environment. Opportunities are what can generate a benefit, while threats are risk factors. A systems analyst, for example, needs to be aware of the impacts of Artificial Intelligence on programming. This external element represents a threat, as it can bring automation and replace humans in several tasks. It can also point to opportunities, with new tools and solutions available to people.

Strengths and weaknesses relate to how prepared one is for the external environment. In the example, there is nothing one can do to prevent AI from reaching the market. It is only possible to say whether there will be advantages (strengths) or disadvantages (weaknesses) in this context. A person who already has a high level of knowledge about the technology would have a strength. Someone who is unfamiliar with the subject would have a weakness. Both become relevant targets for the PDI.

2. Determine your goals

In the context of your profession, the next step is to think about your goals. After all, this perception partially changes the opportunities and threats for the coming years. An easy way to determine a goal is to think about the activity you intend to do in the future. From there, you can create small steps to get there.

3. Map your skills

Once you have defined your goals and understood the context, the next step is to map out the relevant skills. Try to understand not only the technical skills, but also the behavioral ones.

If you have any doubts about which skills are relevant to a particular profession, use career and job boards. Job descriptions provide a good understanding of the expectations of people working in the field.

4. Evaluate your performance

Self-assessment is the next step. This involves determining the gap between the skills you need and those you have already developed. After putting together a list of relevant skills, try to assess your current situation as follows:

incompetence : No or almost no knowledge or skills.
Beginner : Has already been introduced to the subject and knows what needs to be studied.
basic : Master the essential elements of the skill.
Intermediate : Can apply knowledge confidently and deal with most relevant challenges.
Advanced : Broad and complete mastery of the subject with skills used automatically and naturally in everyday life.

5. Define the strategies

Once you have defined a score for each relevant competency, the next step is to choose development strategies:

readings ;
study groups;
courses;
lectures;
seminars;
review of classes;
response to exercises.

One advantage of taking a higher education course is that many tools are made available by the educational institution itself. Classes, libraries, lecture series and mandatory internships are some of the initiatives that you can consider how best to use in your plan.

6. Set deadlines

When selecting strategies, set a deadline for starting and finishing the activity. For example, if you understand that an extension in Emotional Intelligence will be relevant to this skill, put on the calendar when the activity will begin.