Good words as usual Roy, highlighting well the fact that each person and their needs are different.  This includes the fact that everybody's best way of learning is individual, ranging from those who learn best from receiving tuition, those who do so from self-study, others from doing it, and many other approaches together with combinations.


I can still vividly remember, more years ago than I care to count (oh, OK, 43 years ago!) sitting in an HNC electronics class with the lecturer trying to explain how transistor oscillators work. When he kept encountering blank faces, he ran over the maths again, and again, and I kept thinking "fine, I've seen the maths but what's actually happening?", eventually switching him off altogether and going through the text book, and the maths, thinking "if maths is only modelling the effect, then what is it modelling?", so trying to envision what the maths represented until I suddenly experienced epiphany as I realised it was an amplifier whose input was derived from its output, tending towards instability, but hitting stability at the frequency that satisfied the maths and recognising an analogy with a string of a stringed instrument. 

I spent the next break explaining this to my fellow students who all walked away with understanding they didn't get from the lecturer. 


Most importantly, I learnt more about myself in those moments than anything else.


I could have spent many hours more trying to learn from that lecturer and not achieved as much personal development as I did in 5 minutes of my own personal reflection, yet an hours based system would have assigned me far more credit for the former than the latter.


Also, let's not forget that the word is development, not just learning, and covers a myriad of facets, including soft skills, self understanding, personal impact, learning from mistakes - an endless list is possible.


I see no value in recording CPD hours at all. Everybody develops at a different speed, and even for one individual, it comes in bursts. 2 hours by one individual may achieve the same progress as another takes only 10 minutes to achieve, but also, the extent of development that is desired, appropriate or satisfying, or the goals aspired to for one individual may be different  from one individual to another, and for all, these factors may change with time, circumstances and motivation.


For me, far more interesting and useful questions are:

How often do you reflect on your own performance, your career position and progress and your satisfaction with them, the value that you offer your employer, client or other stakeholder?

How can you improve your job satisfaction and enjoyment?

How confident are you that you will be able to meet the challenges you have to meet satisfactorily (to your employer/client/stakeholder's satisfaction and your own), and what obstacles are there preventing you doing so?

How do others perceive you, and how do you feel about that? 

How do you validate any or all of the above (not forgetting that this is an often forgotten objective for registration)?

And then, what do you want to do about the answers to all of the above, and what can you realistically do?

How do you judge the success of whatever development you undertake?

And finally, most importantly of all, why do you want to develop? 

The problem with an hours or points based CPD system is that the answer to that last, potentially, is that it's simply what you've been told you should do. 

All of the above may benefit from being recorded, and that may help some individuals to exert a greater degree of self-motivation and self-discipline, but it's not essential. For the type of individual that Roy describes, and which I believe both of us are examples of, it's unnecessary, we're going to pursue or development instinctively, without the need for any externally imposed or written plan or record. I suspect this describes many others too.


In terms of demonstrating it to others, if practical, I feel a discussion along the lines above will reveal far more, and it will quickly become evident whether or not the individual has in fact given thought to, and has a grasp of their CPD needs and plans.

I realise that doing so on an ongoing basis requires time from those undertaking a review but, firstly, would it really be any more time than wading through a formally documented record, and secondly, is it reasonable for an onerous system of CPD records, or an hours or points based system that may be highly inappropriate for the individual to be imposed just because we haven't found a process, or the means to administer a process that does deliver real value?

Good words as usual Roy, highlighting well the fact that each person and their needs are different.  This includes the fact that everybody's best way of learning is individual, ranging from those who learn best from receiving tuition, those who do so from self-study, others from doing it, and many other approaches together with combinations.


I can still vividly remember, more years ago than I care to count (oh, OK, 43 years ago!) sitting in an HNC electronics class with the lecturer trying to explain how transistor oscillators work. When he kept encountering blank faces, he ran over the maths again, and again, and I kept thinking "fine, I've seen the maths but what's actually happening?", eventually switching him off altogether and going through the text book, and the maths, thinking "if maths is only modelling the effect, then what is it modelling?", so trying to envision what the maths represented until I suddenly experienced epiphany as I realised it was an amplifier whose input was derived from its output, tending towards instability, but hitting stability at the frequency that satisfied the maths and recognising an analogy with a string of a stringed instrument. 

I spent the next break explaining this to my fellow students who all walked away with understanding they didn't get from the lecturer. 


Most importantly, I learnt more about myself in those moments than anything else.


I could have spent many hours more trying to learn from that lecturer and not achieved as much personal development as I did in 5 minutes of my own personal reflection, yet an hours based system would have assigned me far more credit for the former than the latter.


Also, let's not forget that the word is development, not just learning, and covers a myriad of facets, including soft skills, self understanding, personal impact, learning from mistakes - an endless list is possible.


I see no value in recording CPD hours at all. Everybody develops at a different speed, and even for one individual, it comes in bursts. 2 hours by one individual may achieve the same progress as another takes only 10 minutes to achieve, but also, the extent of development that is desired, appropriate or satisfying, or the goals aspired to for one individual may be different  from one individual to another, and for all, these factors may change with time, circumstances and motivation.


For me, far more interesting and useful questions are:

How often do you reflect on your own performance, your career position and progress and your satisfaction with them, the value that you offer your employer, client or other stakeholder?

How can you improve your job satisfaction and enjoyment?

How confident are you that you will be able to meet the challenges you have to meet satisfactorily (to your employer/client/stakeholder's satisfaction and your own), and what obstacles are there preventing you doing so?

How do others perceive you, and how do you feel about that? 

How do you validate any or all of the above (not forgetting that this is an often forgotten objective for registration)?

And then, what do you want to do about the answers to all of the above, and what can you realistically do?

How do you judge the success of whatever development you undertake?

And finally, most importantly of all, why do you want to develop? 

The problem with an hours or points based CPD system is that the answer to that last, potentially, is that it's simply what you've been told you should do. 

All of the above may benefit from being recorded, and that may help some individuals to exert a greater degree of self-motivation and self-discipline, but it's not essential. For the type of individual that Roy describes, and which I believe both of us are examples of, it's unnecessary, we're going to pursue or development instinctively, without the need for any externally imposed or written plan or record. I suspect this describes many others too.


In terms of demonstrating it to others, if practical, I feel a discussion along the lines above will reveal far more, and it will quickly become evident whether or not the individual has in fact given thought to, and has a grasp of their CPD needs and plans.

I realise that doing so on an ongoing basis requires time from those undertaking a review but, firstly, would it really be any more time than wading through a formally documented record, and secondly, is it reasonable for an onerous system of CPD records, or an hours or points based system that may be highly inappropriate for the individual to be imposed just because we haven't found a process, or the means to administer a process that does deliver real value?