Self-reflection in professional practice is an important tool to continue evaluating and learning through our professional careers. To ensure that this is done as effectively as possible I employee the Gibbs’ model of reflection which consists of the following six distinct stages:

• Description
• Feelings
• Evaluation
• Analysis
• Conclusions
• Action plan.

This structured approach to self-reflection has yielded some amazing learning opportunities. Within our organisation we have mandated this structure to self-reflection as a means of continual improvement. In discussion with my peers, one of these critical steps is often overlooked, that being the formation of an action plan. I personally have found this to be the most advantageous step and minimizes the likelihood of repeating the same mistakes. In fact, the first time I enacted this technique the action plan contained mandating this approach for our team on major projects and on randomly selected tasks, which has been implemented into our team and has provided us with many learning opportunities and has been embraced for the value it adds.