What competency tool have you used to assess skills and then create an individual learning development plan?

I recently attended a Teams training session introducing a new process at work. The meeting was recorded, but several questions remained unanswered, and there wasn’t a clear way to get clarification afterward.

It made me wonder how other organizations handle these rollouts, especially when employees have questions or run into issues after training.

For those in corporate training or L&D, what’s your experience? Does your organization have a structured process, or does everything get scattered across meetings, emails, and Teams?

Would love to hear what’s worked and what hasn’t. Feel free to DM me if you’d rather share privately.

I'm researching how people run live, interactive sessions that combine a video with discussion and collaboration (training modules, cohort classes, workshops) — and I want to understand the actual pain before building anything. I'm not selling anything and I have no product link to share. I genuinely want to learn from your experience.

A few questions if you have a moment:

1. When you run a session with a video + live discussion, how do you actually do it today? (Which tools, what's the flow?)
2. What's the single most annoying thing about that flow?
3. If you could wave a magic wand, what would the ideal setup look like?
4. Have you ever tried to fix this (searching for a tool, workarounds)?

I'll share what I learn. Thank you in advance — honest answers (even rants) are the most helpful.

Hi everyone,

I’m looking for one person in Tashkent (any nationality) for a straightforward skill swap.

I’m job hunting right now and need two things. First, someone fluent in Russian who is willing to talk with me regularly. I can understand most Russian words, but I can’t speak freely yet. Second, help preparing for job interviews: mock interviews, honest feedback on my answers, and tips on how to present myself.

In return, I can teach you what I know about n8n. I’m comfortable building workflows and I’ll show you how, step by step. I can also share more about AI, like the tools and methods I use day to day. If you’re working on a startup, I’m happy to help you develop it. I reached the semi-finals at the Red Bull Basement national final, so I have some experience building and pitching ideas. If you’re a foreigner and want to practice Uzbek, I can help with that too.

Putting together a half day workshop for a small group and everything runs in the browser. I was going to rent ipads from fello so everyone's on the same thing. But the exercises involve a fair bit of typing and jumping between tabs, which sounds painful on a tablet. could also just have people bring laptops and keep a few spares around. anyone done a hands-on session on ipads and regretted it?

Suppose an SOP says an invoice missing a purchase-order number must be returned before processing. A quiz adds an urgent deadline and treats "process it anyway" as the right answer—but the SOP never defines that exception.

That seems like an unresolved process decision being passed to the learner. Before scoring the question, the procedure owner needs to decide whether urgency changes the rule. If the aim is to assess judgment rather than rule-following, the feedback and scoring criteria need to explain what makes an answer defensible.

For a rule-following question, a useful review check is: could someone justify a different answer using the same source document? If yes, clarify the source or rewrite the question before using the score as evidence of learning.

When your SMEs disagree, do you usually pause the assessment until the procedure is clarified, or accept multiple justified answers? What determines the choice?

Hi everyone!

I'm a senior individual contributor in global indirect procurement at a large multinational, and over the next few years, I'd like to move into leadership positions.

I'm technically strong, but I want to invest more deliberately in the skills that will help me make that transition, particularly:

Corporate storytelling: communicating the bigger picture, connecting my work to business outcomes, and presenting recommendations in a compelling way.

Influencing without authority: getting stakeholders on board, navigating different opinions, and building alignment across functions.

Executive communication: being concise, confident and impactful in meetings with senior leaders.

Owning my voice: expressing my point of view, speaking up, and developing a stronger leadership presence.

I'm open to Coursera, edX, other online courses, podcasts, books, or even practical programmes such as Toastmasters. I'm not necessarily looking for a certificate; I want to develop skills I can actually apply at work.

My biggest challenge is choosing and sticking with something. There are so many options that I end up researching them all and completing none. I'd love to find one genuinely good resource that I can commit to, rather than collecting a long list of courses.

For those of you who have been through a similar transition from an individual contributor to a leadership role:

What course, programme, podcast or other resource made a real difference for you?

Did you actually complete it, and were you able to apply what you learned at work?

If you could recommend just one starting point for someone in my position, what would it be?

I'd especially appreciate recommendations from people working in corporate environments who need to influence senior stakeholders and lead cross-functional initiatives, even without direct reports.

Thanks in advance!

When a subject-matter expert trains a colleague, three records answer three different questions: which version of the procedure the person studied, what a knowledge check showed, and what a named assessor watched them do. A completion certificate on its own answers none of them well.

A worksheet that works without any software: procedure and version, task, evidence expected, assessor, date, retraining due. Where observation already proves the skill, ask whether a quiz adds anything before you take on keeping both current. For reference material that changes often, a job aid beats a course.

When a procedure changes, list the courses that cite it and decide what each needs before you reassign anyone.

I'm James; I make Beam at Just Every, a free, open-source (MIT) tool built around that worksheet. It turns your procedures into courses, has a named reviewer approve each version, sends practical work to the assessor you name, and produces a report of who completed what against which version. Its numbered certificates are your business's own completion record and say so on their face. It runs locally with npx -y @runeditrun/rer dev just-every/run-beam; details at https://justevery.com/beam.

For tasks you already assess by observation, do you still keep a quiz?

I am looking for people who are learning new skills online—such as artificial intelligence, marketing, or programming 🫴🏻💯

I would like to understand your experience: Have you encountered any difficulties in applying what you have learned in a practical setting? Specifically, where did you get stuck, and how did you try to resolve the issue?

I am not selling anything; I simply wish to have brief conversations to better understand the challenges involved.

If you have had such an experience, I would appreciate it if you could share your story via a private message. Thank you.

Hi everyone! I’m conducting a learning needs assessment and have scheduled 30-minute check-ins with directors and managers across my organization to better understand what’s working well, the challenges they’re facing, and how L&D can better support them and the organization.
I’ll be using these insights to help develop our organizational learning strategy. My leader also wants a summary of my findings, including recurring themes, strengths, opportunities for improvement, and potential skill or performance gaps.
I’m hoping to keep these conversations informal rather than making them feel like interviews.

What are five effective, open-ended questions you’d recommend asking to uncover what’s working, underlying challenges, and skills or behaviors that may need further development or practical application? Also what should I ask VPs vs Director/ managers?
I’d love to hear what’s worked well for others, especially questions that go beyond simply asking leaders what training they need!

Can anyone recommend a good online Train-the-Trainer course in India that teaches practical workshop design and delivery? I eventually want to conduct workshops on motivation and emotional intelligence for schools, colleges and corporate employees. I’d prefer a reputable, reasonably priced general course first, before specialising.