How can people evaluate their planning skills?

The simplest assessment tool is to ask oneself some questions. Honest answers provide a starting point. At a more sophisticated level one might want to participate in a skills assessment center that uses structured in-basket exercises, team exercises and organizational simulations.

The following questions may help in an initial self-assessment:

1. Why do you care about the sophistication of your planning skills?

2. How effectively do you manage your time?

3. Do you generally stay focused on "planning" tasks and avoid being diverted to more routine tasks?

4. Do you approach daily tasks in an organized and orderly manner?

5. Are the details important? Do you want to plan for each part of a task in great detail?

6. Do you try to organize and generalize information from many sources when making decisions?

7. Do you generally develop a plan when assigned an important task?

8. Do you organize information about a task before you plan how it will be accomplished?

9. Do you have a habit of implementing assigned tasks in an organized and orderly fashion?

10. Once you have completed a task do you evaluate how well it was accomplished, that is what was done well and what could have been improved?