Body of Knowledge · Glossary
Improvement plan
A formal, time-boxed, supported chance to meet a stated bar, with the outcome at the end defined when the plan is set. It is fair only if the person already knew the bar and had been given feedback. Paperwork for a decision already made does not count as one.
Where the standard develops it
- PL-4Performance managementExpectations, support, honest consequences, and fair process.
Related terms
- Accountability without fear
- Clear ownership and honest consequences for patterns of unaccountability, combined with real safety for honest error.
- Brilliant jerk
- A high performer whose behaviour breaches the team's values.
- Calibration
- Aligning evaluation standards across interviewers, managers or organisations so that the same capability or performance earns the same judgment.
- Conditions gap
- Underperformance caused by what the person was not given (clear requirements, access, time, a functioning team) rather than by a lack of skill or will.
- Fair process
- A decision people accept even when it goes against them, because they were heard, the reasoning was explained, and what is expected next is unambiguous.
- Managerial leverage
- Grove's framing that a manager's output is the output of the organisation under them, and that activities differ in how much output they produce per hour spent.
- Skill and will
- The first diagnostic question about underperformance is whether the person cannot or will not, because the right responses are entirely different.
Cite this definition
Chicago, BibTeX and licence →Engineering Management Academy. (2026). Improvement plan. In Engineering Management Academy Body of Knowledge (Version 3.1, GLO.improvement-plan). https://www.engineeringmanagement.academy/body-of-knowledge/glossary/improvement-plan