Professional Development Ladder Implementation

Construx’s Professional Development Ladder (PDL) provides structured career pathing for software professionals. We freely offer five different career paths. These career paths work well for some companies. Others need a custom PDL that meets their unique learning and development requirements.

In the PDL Implementation workshop, we’ll design a Professional Development Ladder and a set of career paths specific to your organization. The career paths enable focused professional development that grows staff capabilities much more quickly than ad hoc work experience. The precise guidance also helps attract and retain talent. Because career pathing improves skills in software best practices, domain knowledge, and technology knowledge, organizations deliver projects and products more successfully.

See Construx’s Career Pathing for Software Professionals white paper for more details on the need for and importance of professional development.

Workshop Activities

During the workshop, we will work together to:

• Create a unique set of career paths for your organization, including the capability levels and knowledge areas necessary for progression.
• Map the career paths to the current HR titles.
• Determine the desired level of knowledge area customization.
• Decide on a rollout strategy.

Outcomes

At the conclusion of the workshop, you’ll have:

• A Professional Development Ladder overview that captures the specific knowledge areas, capability levels, and knowledge area detailed changes that will be made. The overview summarizes the career paths and shows how they progress.
• A customization plan to complete the detailed design work for remaining knowledge areas, including which key influencers need to review it, work assignments, and a check-in plan.
• A rollout plan that outlines a strategy for deploying your professional development program.

Duration

The PDL Implementation workshop typically runs for two days.

Some organizations conduct two workshops. In the first, leaders of the organization agree and align on the overall structure, guidelines, and goals for the professional development program. In the second, the group chartered to customize and deploy the PDL makes fine-grained decisions and creates a rollout plan.