This document provides guidance on how judges can grow in their role through developing plans and setting goals. It recommends understanding one's current abilities, setting goals for where you want to be, and creating a plan with specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and timed objectives. Examples of goals might include progressing to a higher judging level or improving particular skills. The document stresses the importance of regularly reviewing and updating your plan to reflect progress and ensure objectives remain relevant.

1. How to grow as a judge
Norman Ralph
L1, Cardiff, UK
@thenoman
norm.ralph@gmail.com

2. Contents
 Development: the 5 W’s
 How to build a plan
 Measuring success
 Q&A

3. Who?
 EVERYBODY!

4. “I intend to judge things for myself; to judge wrongly, I think, is
more honourable than not to judge at all.”
- Henry James

5. What?
 Understanding where you are now
 Working out where you want to be
 Creating a plan on how to get from here to there

6. Where?
 Events (C-REL, R-REL, etc) – judging, scorekeeping, playing
 Conferences/seminars
 Forums
 Job/college/school
 Social groups

7. When?
 EVERYDAY!

8. Why?
 Improve skills
 Expand knowledge
 Increase experience
 Achieve goals
 Have more fun

9. "Nature knows no pause in progress and development, and
attaches her curse on all inaction.“
- Goethe

10. What are your goals?
 What do you want from the judge programme?
 What do you want from being a judge?
 What can you use away from judging?
 Do you have feedback/reviews to include?
 Are you looking to progress towards a higher level?

11. Turning goals into objectives
 Break goals down into categories then into individual items
 Be SMART
 Specific – make sure there is an actual “thing” to do
 Measured – you should be able to determine success or not
 Attainable – can you actually do this thing
 Relevant – is this something that matters
 Timed – there should be a deadline
 Write it down
 Show it somebody

12. Building the plan
 Set a high level vision of where you want to be in 1, 3, 5
years etc
 Define areas that are appropriate for your vision
 Work out objectives that will help you improve in
those areas
 Set review periods

13. “The measure of success is not whether you have a tough problem
to deal with, but whether it is the same problem you had last year”
-John Foster Dulles

14. Reflect and Review
 Revisit plan every few months or after a target date
 Determine whether you have met your objectives
 Note any additional steps or actions you need to take
 Update plan with new objectives, timelines or
measures
 Check existing objectives still relevant

15. “No man really becomes a fool until he stops asking questions.”
- Charles Steinmetz