‘It was so easy’: How Filtered cut their framework build time from weeks to days with Progression

Filtered is a Content Intelligence platform designed to help enterprise organisations master content chaos and effectively manage hundreds of thousands of overlapping L&D content titles.

The challenge

Up until the start of 2023, career development, and specifically career frameworks, were managed in a few different ways by Filtered’s People Team.

On the one hand, they had an Excel spreadsheet, built a couple of years ago, which outlined the technical skills required within the team. But this was generic, built to accommodate the wide range of people within the company, but tailored to noone. Useful to an extent, but ultimately lacking the nuance necessary to truly define and track development at an individual level.

Alongside this, the Filtered team used an HR tool, which offered some functionality but felt like it was designed for big companies with larger teams all doing the same thing.

‘It just didn’t feel personalised.'

Filtered needed a tool that truly supported everyone in the team to grow. A tool that focused in on career development at an individual level and in a personalised way, and one that complemented and informed their review cycles. And they needed a tool that was easy to use and tailor to their unique needs.

They found that tool in Progression.

The solution

Progression wasn’t entirely new to Filtered. A co-founder had made a start already, and Cath was supported by a teammate who’d used the app while working elsewhere. Despite this, she was still a bit nervous.

‘I was really daunted in the beginning — we don’t have examples or best practices, so I had to do everything from scratch.’

What she did have was super generic, focused entirely around technical skills — that career pathway we’ve mentioned built a couple of years back in an Excel spreadsheet.

But now, with the help of our extensive library and GPT-3-powered AI Build Assistant, the team has a far more in-depth, tailored and actionable framework that’s not only based on role-specific technical skills but behavioural skills centred around Filtered’s ten company values.

For some skills, there was a like-for-like (albeit more detailed) version in Progression which Cath simply pulled into the framework and edited to align it more closely with Filtered’s values.

‘It’s really simple to use… I thought it was going to take me days to come up with examples, but it probably took me 40 minutes for each value. It took me two days in total, which I was really really happy about.’

For the skills linking directly to the company’s ten values, Cath needed to take a more bespoke approach. And that’s where the AI Build Assistant stepped in. To keep things consistent, Cath wanted each of the values-based skills to have seven levels, with examples for each of those levels. It felt like a lot of work.

‘I thought I'm going to have to sit and build 70 levels (plus examples)... In my head it was weeks of work, but it really wasn't, it was really really quick. I had it ready in less than two days, in a part time capacity and with other work. It was really good.'

Our AI Build Assistant negated the need to write from scratch — instead, Cath simply had to edit and expand on the content it suggested.

‘It’s a starting place. It’s never going to be perfect — you have to go in and edit slightly… but that starting point is the key bit.'

The outcome

With the framework built and ready to go, Cath’s now testing things out with the team with a first round of Check-ins to benchmark, check and agree levels and the content within each position.

Ultimately, the plan’s to replace the existing bi-annual review process with quarterly Check-ins run in Progression and annual reviews, aligning more closely with Filtered’s promotions cycle, and enabling more regular career conversations. These quarterly Check-in’s ensure work, achievements and progress made towards developing skills in the framework are captured more regularly (and in one place), so nothing’s forgotten come review time, and everyone has the evidence they need to advocate for themselves or their team and justify decisions made.

While still very much in the beginning stages, the team’s excited to get going with our growth features, like Focus Skills and Feedback, and has already made good use of Wins and our Slack integration. And when asked whether she’d recommend Progression to other companies, Cath’s answer was a resounding yes.

‘Absolutely (I’d recommend Progression) — it’s been really great.’

Considering Progression? Here’s Cath’s top tip to get started

‘Work out what you want before you start building — we built and then had to change it all again because we hadn’t taken into account our values.

So spend some time thinking things through before implementing. You’ll save a bit more time.’