An evaluation cycle ends in a readout, a set of reports and, usually, a development plan per associate. The reports get read. The plans, in most firms, are opened once more at the following year's review, when somebody notices nothing on them happened.

This is the least glamorous part of a review program and the part where most of its value either lands or does not.

Why plans stop being read

Nobody owns them. A plan that belongs to the associate alone is a plan that competes with billable work, and billable work wins. A plan owned jointly by the associate and a named partner has somebody whose job it is to raise it.

They have too much on them. Six development areas is a list. An associate who leaves the conversation with six things to work on works on none of them, and the plan reads as a summary of the evaluation rather than as a decision about the next six months.

There is no revisit date. Without one, the next conversation about the plan is the next annual review, which is eleven months of nothing.

They are written for the file. A plan phrased so it will look reasonable to a future reader is not phrased to be acted on. "Continue to develop drafting skills" survives any amount of scrutiny and commits nobody to anything.

What a usable plan contains

Two items. Not one, because a single item makes the plan feel like a remediation notice, and not five, for the reason above.

Each item needs four things:

  • The behavior, stated as something observable. "Raise scope changes with the client contact before agreeing them" rather than "improve commercial judgment".
  • What the firm has to provide. Most development items depend on exposure the associate cannot arrange: a second-chair seat, a client call, a drafting role on a live matter. If the plan does not name what the firm owes, the associate is being asked to demonstrate something they will not get the chance to demonstrate.
  • An owner who is not only the associate. Usually the supervising partner, sometimes a practice group head, occasionally professional development. One name.
  • A revisit date inside the next quarter. Near enough that it is still remembered, far enough that there is something to discuss.

A development action is not a goal

Firms often collapse the two. A goal is an outcome the associate is aiming at, such as running a matter end to end. A development action is the specific thing they will do differently in order to get there.

The distinction matters because goals are easy to agree and impossible to coach. Two people can nod at "take on more responsibility" while picturing different things. "Draft the first version of the advice on the next three matters, and we review before it goes out" is a thing either party can tell has happened.

Carrying it between cycles

A plan in a document is revisited when somebody remembers. A plan held where the next cycle starts is revisited because the cycle asks about it.

That is a small point with a large effect: the next evaluation form should open with last year's two items and ask what happened. It makes the plan a live record rather than an artefact, it tells the reviewer what to look for, and it surfaces the firm's own failures to provide the exposure it promised, which otherwise go unrecorded.

Who should own the follow-up

Three options, and the choice matters less than making one.

The supervising partner is closest to the work and the most likely to let it slide under deadline. The practice group head has the standing to ask and less visibility into the detail. Professional development has the time and the least authority. Firms that make this work tend to put the partner on the plan and professional development on the calendar, so the reminder comes from somebody whose job it is to send it.

Telling whether it worked

The honest test is not whether plans were completed. It is whether the next cycle shows movement on the specific behavior, and whether the associate says the conversation changed anything.

Two things worth tracking across a cohort: the proportion of plans whose items were revisited at all before the next review, and the proportion whose stated firm commitments were met. The second is the one firms are least keen to measure and the one that explains most of the failures, because a plan that depended on exposure the firm never arranged was never the associate's to complete.

SRA carries development actions and their follow-up into the programs it administers, so the next cycle opens on what was agreed in the last one rather than on a blank form. The methodology covers the cycle, and the associate evaluation guide sets out where the follow-up sits in it.