Forward Impact Team

Overview

The core model defines how your engineering terrain is traversed. Every combination of discipline, track, and grade produces a unique, consistent role profile — with skill levels, behaviour expectations, and responsibilities all derived from the same source data.

The Core Formula

Job Definition = Discipline × Track × Grade

Agent Profile = Discipline × Track × Stage

Input Question
Discipline What kind of engineer?
Track Where and how do you work?
Grade What career level?
Stage What part of the lifecycle?

Both jobs and agents use the same skill and behaviour derivation. The difference: jobs include all skills capped by grade, while agents filter out human-only skills and constrain by lifecycle stage.

Entity Overview

erDiagram
    DISCIPLINE ||--o{ JOB : "defines identity"
    TRACK ||--o{ JOB : "provides context"
    GRADE ||--o{ JOB : "sets level"
    DISCIPLINE ||--o{ SKILL : "references"
    SKILL ||--|| CAPABILITY : "belongs to"
    CAPABILITY ||--o{ RESPONSIBILITY : "defines per level"
    TRACK ||--o{ CAPABILITY : "modifies via skillModifiers"
    DISCIPLINE ||--o{ BEHAVIOUR : "modifies"
    TRACK ||--o{ BEHAVIOUR : "modifies"
    DRIVER ||--o{ SKILL : "links to"
    DRIVER ||--o{ BEHAVIOUR : "links to"
Entity Purpose Key Question
Discipline Engineering specialty and T-shaped profile What kind of engineer?
Track Work context and capability-based modifiers Where/how do you work?
Grade Career level with base skill/behaviour levels What career level?
Skill Technical or professional capability What can you do?
Capability Skill grouping for modifiers and responsibilities What capability area?
Behaviour Approach to work and mindset How do you approach work?
Driver Organizational outcome What outcomes matter?

Skills

Skills represent technical and professional capabilities. Each skill belongs to exactly one capability.

Skill Levels (5 Levels)

flowchart LR
    awareness --> foundational --> working --> practitioner --> expert
Level Grades Description
awareness L1 Learning fundamentals, needs guidance
foundational L1-L2 Applies basics independently
working L2-L3 Solid competence, handles ambiguity
practitioner L3-L4 Deep expertise, leads and mentors
expert L5+ Authority, shapes direction across org

Human-Only Skills

Some skills require physical presence, emotional intelligence, or relationship building that AI cannot replicate. These are marked isHumanOnly: true and excluded from agent profile derivation.

Capabilities

Capabilities group skills and define level-based responsibilities. Track modifiers apply to all skills in a capability at once.

Capabilities also define:

Behaviours

Behaviours represent mindsets and approaches to work.

Behaviour Maturities (5 Levels) 

flowchart LR
    emerging --> developing --> practicing --> role_modeling --> exemplifying
Maturity Description
emerging Shows interest, needs prompting
developing Regular practice with guidance
practicing Consistent application, proactive
role_modeling Influences team culture
exemplifying Shapes organizational culture

Disciplines

Disciplines define engineering specialties with T-shaped skill profiles:

Tier Expected Level Purpose
coreSkills Highest for grade Core expertise
supportingSkills Mid-level Supporting capabilities
broadSkills Lower level General awareness

Discipline Properties

Property Type Purpose
isProfessional boolean Uses professionalResponsibilities (IC roles)
isManagement boolean Uses managementResponsibilities (manager roles)
validTracks (string|null)[] Valid track configurations
minGrade string Minimum grade required for this discipline

Tracks

Tracks define work context and modify the base profile through capability-based skill adjustments. Tracks are pure modifiers — they do not define role types.

Tracks also define behaviourModifiers (e.g., systems_thinking: +1).

Grades

Grades define career levels with base expectations:

Grade Primary Secondary Broad Base Behaviour
L1 foundational awareness awareness emerging
L2 foundational foundational awareness emerging
L3 practitioner working foundational developing
L4 expert practitioner working practicing
L5 expert expert practitioner role_modeling

Job Derivation

Skill Derivation Steps

  1. Get skill type — Is this skill primary, secondary, or broad for the discipline?
  2. Get base level — Look up the grade's base level for that skill type
  3. Apply track modifier — Add the track's modifier for the skill's capability
  4. Cap positive modifiers — Positive modifiers cannot exceed grade's max base level
  5. Clamp to valid range — Ensure result is between awareness and expert

Behaviour Derivation

Final Maturity = Grade Base + Discipline Modifier + Track Modifier

Clamped to valid range (emerging → exemplifying).

Key Capabilities

Capability What it does
Job derivation Complete role definitions with skills and behaviours
Agent profiles Stage-specific agent instructions for AI assistants
Skill matrices Derived skill levels with track modifiers applied
Checklists Stage transition criteria from capability definitions
Progression Career path analysis and gap identification
Interviews Role-specific question selection
Job matching Gap analysis between current and target roles

Technical Reference

Modules

Module Purpose
derivation.js Core derivation functions
agent.js Agent profile generation
job.js Job preparation for display
job-cache.js Job caching for performance
interview.js Question selection
progression.js Career path analysis
checklist.js Stage transition checklists
toolkit.js Tool derivation from skills
profile.js Profile filtering (human/agent)
modifiers.js Capability and skill modifiers
matching.js Job matching and gap analysis

Programmatic Access

import { deriveSkillMatrix, deriveBehaviourProfile, deriveJob }
  from "@forwardimpact/libpathway/derivation";

import { prepareAgentProfile }
  from "@forwardimpact/libpathway/profile";