As of 13 August 2026, AI can create a manager development plan.

What to actually do

1. Hand it to a person

   The route this page recommends

   A person who owns the outcome does this end to end, worth it when the failure is dear.

2. Use a tool built for this

   Second choice

3. Do it yourself

   The distant third

   A chat interface, chat-fluent skill, and roughly 30 minutes until you can act on the result.

   How to actually do it

   1. Open your current role description, team objectives and any agreed performance or development framework, then gather the manager's responsibilities and the planning period.
   2. Collect specific examples of the manager's strengths and development needs from one-to-ones, feedback, objectives and observed work, separating evidence from opinion.
   3. Ask the manager and relevant colleagues what capability would make the biggest difference to the team, and record the available time, budget, training and internal support.
   4. Paste the collected information into the prompt, replacing every bracketed slot, and ask the chatbot to create the plan without inventing evidence or legal requirements.
   5. Compare every drafted priority and outcome with the role description, business priorities and evidence you gathered, deleting anything that cannot be supported or achieved with the available resources.
   6. Ask an HR colleague or experienced manager to check fairness, confidentiality, consistency with comparable roles and any employment implications before sharing the draft.
   7. Discuss the checked plan with the manager, amend the priorities and dates they agree to, and send the final version with a scheduled review point.

   Prompt

   Create a practical manager development plan for [MANAGER ROLE] at a UK organisation.
   
   Context:
   - The manager's responsibilities: [RESPONSIBILITIES]
   - Their current strengths, with specific evidence: [STRENGTHS AND EVIDENCE]
   - Their development needs, with specific evidence: [DEVELOPMENT NEEDS AND EVIDENCE]
   - Business or team priorities: [PRIORITIES]
   - Feedback already received from colleagues or direct reports: [FEEDBACK]
   - Available time, budget, training and internal support: [AVAILABLE SUPPORT]
   - Planning period: [PLANNING PERIOD]
   
   Produce a concise table with these columns: development priority, why it matters, observable outcome, actions, support or resources, owner, target date, evidence of progress, and review point. Limit the plan to the most important priorities and make each outcome specific and observable. Separate facts supplied above from suggestions you have inferred. Do not invent performance evidence, qualifications, policies, dates, training providers or legal requirements. Do not diagnose the manager or make a decision about their employment. Flag any missing information that a manager or HR colleague must resolve. Include a short section called 'Fairness and implementation checks' covering consistency with the person's role, reasonable access to development, confidentiality of feedback, and the need to discuss and agree the plan with the manager. Use plain British English.

   Open it prefilled in ChatGPT or Claude, or copy it into Gemini, which takes no prefill link.