03Global
From 40% to 100% clarity on career progression.
A transparent, measurable framework that helped designers understand where they stood, where they could go and how to grow.
- My role
- Design leader and framework creator
- Industry
- Media & entertainment
- Focus
- Team leadership, Career systems
- Scope
- Individual contributor and management pathways
The short version
The case in three moves.
- Challenge
- Designers lacked clear expectations, progression routes and consistent standards—making development conversations subjective and frustrating.
- Leadership
- I evolved a competency framework across three roles, embedded it in monthly development sessions and refined it continuously with team feedback.
- Outcome
- Progression clarity rose from 40% to 100%; the framework influenced other departments and became a public Notion template adopted by teams worldwide.
01 / Problem
Ambiguity is expensive for people and teams.
Without explicit expectations, designers struggled to understand their current performance or what progression required. The result could be stagnation, attrition and inconsistent standards across the work.
Managers had the same problem from the other side: development conversations relied too heavily on individual interpretation instead of a shared definition of good.
02 / Framework
Make growth observable without making it mechanical.
The framework evolved through three leadership roles and regular use with design teams. Inspired initially by public examples such as Intercom’s structure, it grew into a system with two pathways—individual contributor and management—supported by development areas, competencies and clear levels of expectation.
Visual progress indicators helped designers and managers identify strengths and choose development priorities together. The purpose was direction and transparency, not a scorecard detached from real work.
03 / Adoption
Use the framework in the conversation where it matters.
I embedded the framework in monthly personal-development sessions. Designers prepared against it, tracked progress and answered one recurring question: ‘What more can I do for you?’ Their feedback shaped each iteration.
The system moved from Excel to Confluence and then Notion as the need for accessibility and wider use grew. Team updates and self-led development projects helped create shared ownership rather than a leadership-only tool.
04 / Impact
Clarity became measurable.
Progression-clarity ratings increased from 40% when I joined to 100% in the latest company survey. Every designer reported that the framework helped them understand their progression.
The model was shared across the business, adapted by other disciplines and published as a Notion template for designers and managers. Teams around the world have since adopted it.