Questions people ask about the learning plane.

A place where a department writes down what good work looks like and its people grow towards it, week by week. A skillset says what good looks like; a programme turns it into weeks of real work. Each person follows their own learning path, hands in evidence and has it reviewed, and when the path is done, a published result says where they stand, area by area.

Development teams that want to grow their people on purpose: a department that can say what good looks like, teams with leads who can review work, and members who want to see their own progress. Ptera Technologies built it for its own engineering organization first.

The people who know the work. Team leads draft them, by hand or, where the platform offers drafting, from a short brief, going through the draft one capability or one week at a time. The head of the department publishes them. Nobody is started on a programme before it is published, and a published skillset is never rewritten: a change becomes a new version.

Not at first. Every department starts with a team of its own name, led by its head where one is named, so there is somewhere to put people straight away. Add more teams when a department has several groups, each with its own lead.

No. People can sign in with a work email, a password and an authenticator app. An organization administrator can connect Microsoft or Google, so people sign in with the accounts they already have, and GitLab, so a task can come with a repository of its own.

No. Each organization has its own people, skillsets, programmes and history, and none of it is shared with another. The platform’s administrators run organizations from a console of their own and are never members of one.

Write to us through the contact page. We will look at how your department is organized and how your people learn today, and set up your first organization with you.

Only an organization administrator gives one: by an invitation, sent by name and work address, whose link works once and expires, or, where the organization signs in with Microsoft, by switching the person on from its directory. There is no self-registration, and where the organization has domains, the address has to be on one of them.

With a work email and a password plus an authenticator app, or with the Microsoft or Google account their organization already uses. An organization decides whether a Microsoft or Google sign-in also has to hold the platform’s authenticator.

If you sign in with a password, you first set up an authenticator app and keep the recovery codes it gives you. Then you answer what you are asked about yourself, one part at a time: your department’s questionnaire, if it asks one, places you against the capabilities it expects, and your organization’s own questionnaires may also ask you to choose an option or write a few words. “I don’t know” is a real answer, and nobody scores it.

Use “Forgot your password?” on the sign-in page. Where the platform can send mail, a link arrives at your address; it works once and for thirty minutes, and your authenticator stays as it is. If your organization signs you in with Microsoft or Google, there is no password here to reset — use that button, and your organization’s own rules apply.

Sign in with one of the recovery codes you saved when you set it up. Without those, ask your organization administrator: they can issue a private recovery link that lets you choose a new password and set up a new authenticator.

Each week of your programme is a task: what the week is about, what to read and watch first, the work and its checklist, what makes it acceptable and what to hand in, with an estimate of the effort. It closes on its due date, you are reminded two days before, and your lead can move the deadline if you need more time.

Evidence, on the task: what you did in your own words, any links, and up to five files, each checked before anybody can open it. Your team’s lead or one of its mentors reviews it and accepts it or asks for changes.

Flag a blocker on the task and say what is in the way. The task turns red, and your lead and whoever assesses your path are told at once.

Yes, when the head of your department or an administrator wants to know where you stand now. It waits under Needs you, on the web and on the phone, with who asked, why and by when, and you answer it whenever it suits you, with what you said last time beside each question. Its date is the last day to answer, and what you have not answered by then expires. An administrator can make it required: then, on that date or from an earlier day they choose, it comes before everything else until you have answered.

When your path’s work is done, its assessor, usually your team’s lead, gives each capability of the skillset a level from 0 to 4, with a note where it helps, and publishes the result with feedback and next steps. It reads as where you stand, area by area, never as one grade. A draft never reaches you, and a correction becomes a new revision.

Once a year, on the date your organization sets, the head of your department writes where you stand and where they want you to be, in words and with no grade, over your year: your programmes and results, your work and the feedback on it. It is private until it is published, and you can take the whole year as one PDF. Leads and mentors never read it.

Yes. Each learning path belongs to one team, so somebody in two teams can have a path in each, and each team’s lead follows the paths in their own team.

You, your team’s lead and mentors, the head of your department and your organization’s administrators, each within their responsibility. What you say about yourself, when you join and whenever you are asked again, is read by the people who follow your work where it was asked, and by your organization’s administrators. Platform support can be granted a temporary look at how an organization is configured — never at anybody’s work — and every look is in the audit history.