ELEMENTS OF PR ACTICE By Fiona Heron and Diarmaid Taylor
Fiona Heron is a landscape architect and consultant on urban design and strategy. Diarmaid Lawlor is Director of Place and Architecture and Design Scotland.
Growing profess Continuous professional development (CPD) is not just about compliance with professional institute requirements: it is a personalised curriculum to shape your future professional path. What are the optimum subjects and styles to create learning experiences for the future you?
L
andscape architecture excels in thinking about time, change and building the conditions for people places. The day job in the profession is demanding, projectfocused and technical. It provides a lot of learning opportunities. But, like landscapes, we need to build the conditions to grow professionally, so across time, our professional development changes. There is a difference between the skills needed to do the job, and the skills needed to grow. To grow, you need to understand where you are, and where you want to be and use these insights to shape how you best use learning experiences. Continuing professional development is important. It is not just about compliance with professional
64
institute requirements once in a while. It can be a personalised curriculum to shape your future path and growth professionally. Reflecting on the CPD submissions from the profession this year, we have drawn out some tips which might help you structure a growth approach to CPD.
1 Understand your needs Try to differentiate between the specific needs of your job and the projects within it, and the kind of landscape architect you want to be. What is the vision for the future you? It may be about proficiency in a specific area of expertise, or it may be about leadership, or being an all rounder. Use CPD to reflect on where you are in your own development, and where you want to be.
2 Map out where
you want to be Objectives help set out the building blocks to help you get where you want to be professionally. There will be near-term demands: things you need to get on top of to make work easier and better. There will be mid-term ambitions, which set out where you will get to if you do get better at things now, and do take the opportunities available. A bit of time thinking where you want to go in your career can help set short- and mid-term ambitions. These ambitions can help focus what learning experiences are most relevant to get you where you want to be.
