Your training is in place, but it isn't changing anything.
Employees can find courses, but struggle to match them to the skills they actually need.
Competency-Driven Development
Turn skill gaps into milestones.
Competency-Driven Development (CDD) grows teams by proving skills instead of counting classes. Grow Strong is a steward of the method. We teach it openly, you can run it yourself, and we're here when you want help.
The gap
Attendance doesn't mean growth.
Most learning systems report who finished a class. That doesn't tell you who can do the work. Leaders end up guessing which skills the company really has and which it's missing.
Evaluations can't keep up as you grow.
Proving skills well takes people and time, and most teams run out of both.
Your team can't always keep your brand's promises.
Turnover and uneven capability make it hard to trust that the work will be done well, every time.
What is CDD
Start with the skill. Everything else follows.
Competency-Driven Development builds learning around competencies: clearly written skills that people can learn, prove and be recognized for. Lectures and classes can still help. They just stop leading. The competency does.
Evaluations
Prove mastery in ways that fit the skill: a timed project, an expert conversation, on-the-job observation, a team review.
Inclusive learning
People learn in different ways. Mentors, practice, reading, apprenticeship and trial and error all count.
Transferable skills
If someone already has the skill, they prove it and move on. No repeat classes.
Self-paced mastery
Nobody moves ahead before showing mastery, and nobody is held back by the pace of a class.
Learning pathways
Skills are arranged by difficulty and audience, so the next skill is always clear.
Digital credentials
Earned skills become portable badges that follow the Open Badges standard.
Skill reporting
Leaders see where skills are concentrated and where the gaps are, not just who attended.
A repeatable process
When the business needs new skills, run the same process again. No new system required.
Our role
Grow Strong is a steward of CDD.
We care for the method, teach it to the public, and want it in the hands of as many organizations as possible.
We teach it.
The method is explained right here on this site.
You can run it yourself.
We encourage anyone to implement CDD on their own.
Ask when you want help.
Invite us in to help build and run your system whenever it's useful.
What changes
Make your organization strong.
Clarity
Employees get clear job expectations and growth goals, so they feel more engaged and more recognized when they grow.
Motivation
Badges and levels turn skill-building into achievement, with real recognition when someone masters something new.
Visibility
See where skills are concentrated and where the gaps are, and develop the right skills in the right places.
Strategy first
Every competency traces back to the skills your strategy needs, so training effort follows what matters.
- Reduce employee turnover
- Recognize and celebrate growth
- Re-skill and promote from within
- Find and fill crucial skill gaps
Writing competencies
Six principles for competencies that hold up.
Everything in CDD starts with a well-written competency. We teach six principles, which spell STRONG, so each one is worth earning and easy to prove.
Significant
Valuable, and worth someone's time.
Targeted
Aimed at the right level of mastery.
Reasonable
Within reach of the people it's assigned to.
Observable
Measurable and provable, ideally in about a minute.
Narrative
Tells part of the story of what its holder can do.
Granular
Right-sized, focused and balanced.
After the live coding demonstration, the learner will build functional user-input-driven front-end applications using VueX and VueJS.
Build functional user-input-driven front-end applications using VueX and VueJS.
Implementing CDD
Four phases. One process you can repeat.
Whether you run it yourself or bring us in, the path is the same. Once it's running, adding new skills means running the process again, without starting over with a new system.
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Phase 1
Discover
Align leaders, find champions and metrics, and map the skills your strategy depends on.
You getA blueprint and plan
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Phase 2
Design
Turn draft skills into STRONG competencies, with evaluations and learning activities for each.
You getA complete competency model
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Phase 3
Develop
Build the competencies into awardable digital badges and test them with small groups first.
You getA working badge system
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Phase 4
Deliver
Hand off to your champions and team leads, with a succession plan for when people move on.
You getA system your people already use
Your steering committee and champions each need about five hours a week at most.
Put it to work
Do it your way. We'll help if you want us to.
There's no wrong door. Pick the path that fits your team and your budget, and switch whenever that changes.
Do it yourself.
CDD is built to be run by the people who live with the results. Follow the phases above, write your own competencies, and evaluate them your own way.
- Start with a few skills, not everything
- Use whatever tools you already have
- Reach out any time you want a second opinion
Bring us in to help.
Want a faster start or a steadier hand? We help with any part of it, from first conversation to a system your champions run.
- Full implementation with your steering committee and champions
- Trained evaluators as you grow, with options starting at $50 per evaluation
- Coaching for the champions who will carry it on
Choose your tools.
CDD works with many tools, from a spreadsheet to a full learning platform. If CertifyHub is the best fit, we hope you'll use it. If something else suits you better, use that.
- Works alongside your existing LMS
- CertifyHub for authoring, evaluating and awarding
- We'll tell you honestly what fits
CertifyHub
A tool built for CDD.
Writing a credible certification is hard, so most organizations never start. CertifyHub takes you from an idea to a defensible draft in minutes, then supports the human evaluation that makes the badge mean something.
AI-assisted authoring
Describe a skill and get a draft certification with competencies and example evaluation tasks, ready for your experts to refine.
Evaluated by people
Badges are awarded after an evaluator checks the learner against the competencies, never automatically.
Portable credentials
Badges follow the Open Badges standard, so employees can download them, share them to LinkedIn and have them verified outside the platform.
Not another LMS
Competencies link to the learning resources you already have, so your current training stays useful.
In your business
One skills model, many decisions.
Once skills are clear and proven, they improve far more than training.
Hiring
Check candidates against the same competency model you use for your team.
Onboarding
New hires prove the skills they already have and learn only what's new to them.
Ongoing training
Skill gaps show you where to focus, and new skills roll out through the same process.
Reviews and promotions
Frequent evaluations replace the once-a-year review, and levels can inform raises and promotions.
Trusted by
Contact
Start a conversation.
Have a question about CDD? Want a hand putting it to work? Tell us where you are. We'll tell you honestly whether you need us, a tool, or just a plan.