Building Data-Driven Prototypes in Axure
Comprehensive video course created for Pluralsight on advanced UX prototyping
This program is part of the learning ecosystem I designed for Charles Schwab's Digital Retail organization, connecting peer learning infrastructure to measurable skill development and organizational transformation.
Background
In 2025, Digital Retail leadership wanted a mentorship program that focused on 1:1 development in skills mapped directly to the organization's Talent Architecture—the competency framework launching in 2026. Traditional mentorship programs often drift toward career advice and relationship-building (valuable, but hard to measure); this program needed to produce observable skill growth.
As the program designer and administrator, I was responsible for framework design, support materials development, launch, ongoing administration, change management communications, and outcomes reporting to senior leadership
Skills: Program design • measurement design • stakeholder communication • manager enablement • mentorship framework development
Tools: Microsoft 365 suite • SharePoint • Copilot M365
The organizational need
The Talent Architecture gave Digital Retail a shared language for skills and competencies, but a framework alone doesn't develop people. The organization needed a structured way to translate self-assessment insights into focused development—and to measure whether that development actually happened.
Program design
Experience Exchange pairs mentees with mentors (often peers) for a 3-month cohort, with mentor and mentee meetings every 2-3 weeks. Unlike general mentorship, the relationship centers on specific functional skills identified through Talent Architecture self-assessment and manager collaboration.
Development focus
Mentees develop functional skills mapped to their role's competencies. When the mentor is a peer, the mentor is simultaneously developing coaching and leadership skills. Both receive feedback that they can share with their managers. The program leans heavily into Experience and Exposure: learning by doing, observing, and practicing rather than just discussing
Framework elements
- Manager-involved goal setting: Before the cohort begins, mentees and their managers complete a pre-work session to identify development areas from the Talent Architecture and translate them into specific, observable goals for the mentoring relationship. Managers define what behavior change they'd consider a sign of successful growth.
- Flexible mentorship formats: The program supports four formats—Skill Shadowing (observation), Skills-Focused Mentoring (discussion), Work Review + Coaching (work review), and Skills Practice Lab (practice). Mentor/mentee pairs choose which format or mix best supports their strengths and target skills.
- Support materials: Getting started guides for mentors and mentees, coaching materials for managers so they know how to prepare and support their reports, and templates and workbooks for goal setting.
- Measurement design: Mentees (and peer mentors) complete confidence self-assessments before and after the cohort, plus self-reflections to share with managers. Managers receive a Kirkpatrick Level 4 assessment a few months post-cohort to evaluate observable behavior change and business impact.
The impact
Experience Exchange piloted in Q4 2025 and is scaling in H1 2026. The pilot validated the framework and reinforced the importance of manager involvement in goal-setting—when managers actively participate in defining success criteria, the mentoring relationship stays focused and measurable.
Cohort timing will align with Peer Learning Circles, encouraging team members to choose one program rather than overcommit to both.
Mentorship programs are easy to launch and hard to measure. The design challenge was building in measurement from the start—not as an afterthought, but as the scaffolding that keeps mentor/mentee pairs focused on actual skill growth.
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