A practical guide to building balanced development plans

Real growth doesn’t come from training courses alone. It comes from a blend of on-the-job experience, learning from others, and formal education. This guide shows managers how to help their teams build balanced development plans, and how to follow through to ensure growth stays practical and impactful. This approach reflects the well-established 70:20:10 principle of learning and development — where most growth comes from real work experience, supported by social learning from others and reinforced through formal training.

70:20:10 approach in practice

Use the Greenbeam development plan tab to document goals across these three learning areas.

1. Learning through work (70%)
   Encourage employees to take on stretch tasks, new responsibilities, or project rotations. Growth is most powerful when employees apply skills directly in their day-to-day roles.
   
   Conversation prompt: “Where would you like more stretch in your current role?”
2. Learning through others (20%)
   Support mentoring, coaching, and peer-to-peer knowledge sharing. Build learning moments into team discussions, feedback conversations, and shadowing opportunities.
   
   Conversation prompt “Who could you learn from or collaborate with to build this skill?”
3. Learning through structured programs (10%)
   Add formal training, workshops, or courses where specific knowledge or certification is needed. Use these to reinforce what employees are already learning in practice.
   
   Conversation prompt “Which formal training will provide the foundation you need?”

Manager tips

Final tip: Start with work experience as the foundation, add collaboration to build momentum, and use structured programs for reinforcement.

Turning plans into action

After the conversation, managers can ensure progress by:

• Agreeing on a check-in rhythm (monthly or quarterly).
• Tracking evidence of growth — from project outcomes to completed training.
• Celebrating milestones and adapting as role needs evolve.

Balance is only part of the equation - collaboration makes it stick. Greenbeam’s development plan feature provides a shared, collaborative space where employees and managers can build, track, and adjust plans together. Log into Greenbeam.

Reference note:
The idea that most learning comes from experience, some from others, and a smaller share from formal training is based on research by Michael M. Lombardo and Robert W. Eichinger at the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL). They introduced the 70:20:10 framework in their book The Career Architect Development Planner (1996). Read more at ccl.org.