Development Plan - Critical or Waste of Time?

Currently I'm working on some career development items and I kept bumping into the fact that we have no formal long-term career development plan proceedure. This really surprised me because I always created my own ( what I wanted to do and how I would achieve it). So I set out to do some research on the subject.

There is quite a lot of information out there on the subject but all was pretty "over the top". I finally settled on creating my own format again based off these ideas. It seems many companies have job rotation programs or "experienced commercial leadership program" formats for a select few. But none of these answer the question of what happens to a person who is eventually identified as having potential but is not a part of any such formal job rotation program (none exist at my company)?

So I began sketching out this plan and it really opened my eyes to the dirty little secret these days. Once you get someone good on your team you don't want to promote them ( so that they go on to someone else's team!). Companies are so tapped for people in this era of downsizing that nobody wants to give up their best people. I experienced this firsthand. Well, I'm going out on a limb here because holding someone back can't be good for the business - I've just got to put this person on a faster track. The company will benefit even if I have to work without them. I've heard people continually preach that "you invest all this time in them and then they go and leave". I am convinced that some people deserve even more investment. Companies shouldn't look at it as money wasted but rather money invested ( and returned while that person works here). Ultimately if your company stinks and the person moves on - who is the bad guy? He or she for moving on or you for not improving your company to make it attractive to talented workers?

That is a tremendous risk but ultimately in a knowledge-intensive industry like mine ( engineered / formulated chemical systems ) people are the assets that generate all the return! Products don't invent themselves nor do they make or sell themselves. People do. Good people.

I'm banking on it........I'll post more on the subject when I get it finished.