Competency Assessments

How competency levels are evaluated, suggested, and confirmed.

How assessment works

Competency levels on the platform are evidence-based, not test-based. The AI listens to how participants describe their real work during Operate conversations and looks for observable signals before suggesting a level.

The four signals FE listens for

Consistency

The participant applies this competency regularly in their day-to-day work — not just in special circumstances. FE looks for language like “I’ve been doing this in every…” or “I’ve noticed I now automatically…”

Transfer

The participant applies the competency in situations they haven’t explicitly prepared for. Transfer is a strong indicator of internalisation rather than performance.

Complexity

The participant handles harder, messier, or more ambiguous situations using the competency. At the Reference level, this includes novel or high-stakes contexts.

Self-monitoring

The participant can observe and adjust their own practice in real time — noticing when they’re not applying the competency well and course-correcting without external prompting.

Level definitions

Level	AI can confirm?	Facilitator must confirm?
Beginner	Yes	No
Developed	Yes	No
Reference	No — suggests only	Yes — always

Your confirmation workflow

When a participant reaches Reference-level evidence, you receive a notification and the competency appears in the Pending Reviews queue.

For each pending review you can:

• Read the evidence summary — a 2–3 sentence summary FE generated from the conversation, in the participant’s language
• Confirm at Reference — applies the level and notifies the participant
• Set to Developed — if the evidence is strong but not yet Reference
• Mark for follow-up — flag to revisit in the next session

You can also proactively set a competency level at any time from the participant’s competency map — you don’t need to wait for an AI suggestion.

Adjusting past assessments

If a participant’s practice has regressed, or you believe a previous assessment was over-generous, you can update any competency level from the participant’s profile. All changes are timestamped and the participant is notified.