Devoted to how insight is developed, shared and acted on
Under-Developed or Under-Development?
In many professions, the use of continuous professional development (CPD) has become fairly standard practice. For example, in the NHS, nurses, physiotherapists etc. all have to spend a given number of days each year on CPD. This can involve attendance on courses as well as personal study time devoted to keeping up with the latest approaches.
Perhaps we could learn from this and practise CPD in the Insight world. It’s always worth investing a little time in your own development - but this is the sort of thing that unfortunately never seems urgent. As a result, it typically gets squeezed out in favour of day-to-day pressures and projects. But if you allocated a given number of days – say five or six per year – to this practice, wouldn’t that help your personal development? You could even include it in all your job specs.
CPD and insight
In the field of insight, CPD can cover both hard technical skills and those softer skills that involve a greater emphasis on perception. You could invest time in checking out and learning new techniques for research, analysis or forecasting. Alternatively, you could spend some time building your understanding of your market, your business or managerial skills.
CPD doesn’t always have to involve external costs, so you can look for ways of doing this even if training budgets are restricted. Personal experience or immersion is always an eye-opening experience, but you could also set aside time for someone in the team to share their expertise with others (for example ‘lunch and learn’ sessions).
Some ideas include:
- To develop your techniques: attend courses and seminars and read the latest academic papers.
- To develop your knowledge of your market or business: spend time (or even help?) at the coalface - possibly in a retail outlet or a distribution centre; in a call centre; at a factory etc. Alternatively, set aside a specific period of time for doing some background reading on a market – either online or by looking through publications and periodicals.
- To develop your business and managerial skills: check out both internal and external training opportunities, including online options.
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