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Practices

Organize members by functional specialty for skill development and career progression.

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Practices represent functional or technical specialty groups within your organization - such as Backend Engineering, Product Design, or Data Science. Unlike teams that focus on project delivery, practices focus on skill development and career progression.

What Are Practices?

A practice is a community of members who share a common discipline or skill set. While a member might work on different project teams throughout the year, their practice remains constant - it's their professional home for growth and development.

Examples of practices:

  • Frontend Engineering
  • Backend Engineering
  • Product Management
  • UX Design
  • Data Science
  • Quality Assurance

Practices vs Teams

Practices Teams
Skill-based grouping Project-based grouping
Career development focus Delivery focus
One practice per member Multiple teams per member
Managed by practice leads Managed by team leads
Defines practice levels Defines objectives

A developer might be on the "Mobile App" team for project work but belong to the "Frontend Engineering" practice for career development. The team determines what they work on; the practice determines how they grow.

Practice Assignments

Members are assigned to exactly one practice. This constraint ensures:

  • Clear level progression ownership
  • Consistent competency assessments
  • Focused development guidance

When a member changes disciplines (e.g., moving from engineering to product management), they transfer to a new practice - their level and competency assessments reset to reflect the new career path.

Practice Leads

Practice leads are experienced members who guide others in their discipline. They:

Responsibility Description
Define practice levels Create levels and set expectations
Manage competencies Define skills required at each level
Assess members Provide competency feedback
Recommend promotions Identify members ready for advancement
Guide development Help members grow in their discipline

A practice can have multiple leads to share the workload.

Practice Principles

Practices can define their own principles for peer feedback. These complement organization-wide principles with discipline-specific expectations.

For example, an Engineering practice might add principles like:

  • "Writes maintainable, well-tested code"
  • "Participates constructively in code reviews"
  • "Documents technical decisions"

Practice principles appear automatically in feedback forms for members of that practice.

Getting Started

For Organization Administrators

  1. Create practices - Navigate to Settings > Practices
  2. Define each practice - Name, description, color, and icon
  3. Assign practice leads - Promote experienced members to lead role
  4. Assign members - Add members to their appropriate practice

For Practice Leads

Once assigned as a practice lead:

  1. Define levels - Create your practice levels (see Levels & Competencies)
  2. Define competencies - Identify skills for your discipline
  3. Set expectations - Map competencies to levels with proficiency requirements
  4. Onboard members - Help members understand their current level and growth path

Who Sees What

Role Access
Member Their own practice, level, and assessments
Practice Lead All members in practices they lead
People Manager Direct reports' practice information
Org Admin All practices and all members