Your best employee just told you they want to grow in their role. You say "absolutely, let's talk about it." Then what? Most managers freeze because they have never been taught how to structure a development conversation. They either default to "what training do you want?" (which puts the burden on the employee) or schedule a meeting that turns into a vague chat about career aspirations with no follow-up.
This template walks you through a structured development conversation in five phases. It is not a form to fill out and file away. It is a dialogue framework that a manager and employee complete together, with concrete actions, timelines, and follow-up check-ins built in.
What is in this template
The board has five columns that follow the arc of a development conversation. Each column represents a phase of the discussion.
Preview: Employee Development Plan
Walk through a development conversation step by step. Drag cards to try it.
Drag cards between columns or add your own
Tap a card, then tap a column header
Identify Goals. Start here. Four cards guide the conversation: define the employee's primary career goal, identify three long-term goals (1-5 year horizon, like reaching a senior role or becoming a recognized expert), identify three short-term goals (3-12 months, like completing a certification or learning a new tool), and list specific activities for each goal with deadlines and owners. Each goal card has a checklist so nothing stays abstract.
Describe Current Tasks. This is the phase most development plans skip entirely. Two cards: one for positive tasks (current work that contributes to the employee's long-term goals, with actions to do more of these) and one for negative tasks (current work that prevents growth, with actions to minimize, remove, or delegate these). This distinction is what makes the template genuinely useful. Every other development plan asks what to ADD. This one also asks what to REMOVE.
Experiences and Skills. Now that goals are set and current work is assessed, identify the gap. What additional skills, knowledge, or experience would help the employee in their current role or future positions? Then define concrete actions to acquire them: take a course, shadow a colleague, lead a project, attend a conference.
Future Check-ins. Development plans that do not include follow-up are just well-formatted wish lists. Three check-in cards, each with a due date. These are not performance reviews. They are 15-minute conversations to ask: are you making progress? What is blocking you? Do the goals still feel right? Regular check-ins turn a document into a living plan.
Done. Completed development items. When a goal is achieved, a skill is acquired, or a check-in is completed, the card moves here.
"People don't leave companies. They leave managers who never invested in their growth." - Marcus Buckingham, Author, First, Break All the Rules
Why this template asks what to stop, not just what to start
The standard approach to employee development is additive: add new goals, add new skills, add new training. Nobody asks what the employee should do less of. The result is an employee with the same overloaded workload PLUS a development plan on top. That is not growth. That is more work.
According to Gallup's workplace research, only 15% of employees worldwide are engaged at work. One of the top drivers of disengagement is feeling stuck doing work that does not align with their strengths or career direction. A development plan that identifies negative tasks (work that prevents growth) and commits to reducing them addresses this directly.
What we do at Rock: the development board lives in a shared space between the manager and employee. Both can see the goals, the task analysis, and the upcoming check-ins. When the manager commits to delegating a task that was blocking the employee's growth, it is documented on the board. Not in an email that gets forgotten. The conversation and the commitments live in the same place where the team works every day. For more on improving work performance, this framework is the starting point.
"The best managers don't just tell their people what to work on. They also tell them what to stop working on. That is the harder conversation, but it is the more valuable one." - Kim Scott, Author, Radical Candor
Who this template is for
Best for: Managers having their first development conversation. Growing agencies where team leads need a structured approach to growing their people. Any manager who knows development planning is important but has never been given a framework for it. Works especially well after the 30-60-90 day onboarding period when the employee is settled and ready to think about growth.
Skip this if: You need a formal performance review template with ratings and evaluations. This is a development conversation, not a performance assessment. The two should be separate. Mixing them makes the employee defensive when they should be aspirational.
Tips for running the conversation
Walk through the template together. Do not email it to the employee and ask them to fill it out. The value is in the dialogue, not the document. Sit down (or hop on a call) and go column by column. The manager asks the questions. The employee answers. Both contribute ideas. The board captures the agreed actions.
Spend the most time on "Describe Current Tasks." This is the phase managers rush through or skip. But it is the most diagnostic. When an employee says "I spend 40% of my week on admin tasks that have nothing to do with my career goals," that is actionable intelligence. The manager can commit to delegating or automating those tasks. That single change does more for development than any training course.
"Development is not an event. It is not a course or a conference. It is the daily accumulation of experiences that align with where someone wants to go." - Julie Zhuo, Author, The Making of a Manager
Schedule the check-ins immediately. Before the conversation ends, put dates on the three check-in cards. If they are not scheduled, they will not happen. Engaged remote employees especially benefit from scheduled development conversations because they do not get the informal growth signals that come from sitting near their manager in an office.
Keep the board alive between check-ins. When the employee completes an activity or acquires a new skill, move the card. When circumstances change and a goal no longer makes sense, update it. The board should reflect the current state of development, not what was agreed six months ago.
