How Guild Works — From Assessment Design to Client Report

Guild was designed by Rupert Picardo, who has been on the practitioner side of the assessment process — as an assessment designer, an assessment centre facilitator, and a report writer — since 2003. The module structure in this page reflects what he learned about where the friction actually sits in a well-run assessment programme.

Most practitioners have a workflow that looks something like this: build the assessment instrument in one place, collect responses in another, score manually or in a spreadsheet, write the report in Word, brand it in Canva, export it to PDF, and send it to the client. Each step is a tool. Each tool is a version control risk.

Guild is built around a different premise. One platform covers the complete assessment workflow — from designing the instrument to producing the client report. The four modules (Assess, Observe, Reflect, Refine) are not features bolted together. They map directly to the four stages of how a competency assessment actually gets done.

Assess — Design and deliver the assessment

Every Guild engagement starts in Assess. This is where you build the assessment instrument and send it to participants.

Building an assessment

Multiple choice questions (MCQ) — scored automatically against a defined key. Useful for knowledge checks, policy assessments, and situations where there is a defensible right answer.

Situational judgement tests (SJT) — scenario-based questions with behavioural response options. Participants rank the options from most to least effective. Scoring is weighted by rank position against competency indicator targets.

Likert-scale behavioural surveys — five-point or seven-point scales anchored to specific behavioural indicators. The workhorse of competency measurement.

Open-ended text responses — free-text answers that the practitioner reviews and scores manually.

Forced ranking — participants rank a set of items in order of priority or preference.

360 multi-rater feedback — available on Studio and Atelier plans through the Reflect module (launching soon). Assess handles the individual assessment layer; Reflect handles the rater network.

The competency library

Guild's core competency library covers the leadership and management competencies most commonly assessed in OD work — each mapped to behavioural indicators and available in all supported question formats. On PAYG and Studio plans, you work from this library. On Atelier, you can submit your own proprietary competency framework for integration into a private library only your account can access.

Delivering to participants

When the assessment is ready, participants receive a link to the Guild candidate portal — a clean, mobile-responsive interface that works on any device without any installation. The portal shows them the assessment, collects responses, and confirms submission. You see completion status in real time.

You control the access window, the order in which questions are presented, and whether participants can review their responses before submitting.

Observe — Assessment centre observation without the midnight typing

Assessment centres have always had the same operational problem. Observers collect rich behavioural data in the session — but it lives in handwritten notes, shorthand that only makes sense to the person who wrote it, and memory that degrades by the time the debrief happens.

Observe solves this. It is a structured observation tool that runs on your phone or tablet during live assessment centre sessions.

How it works in practice

Before the session, you configure the observation framework in Guild — the competencies you are assessing, the indicators you are watching for, and the rating scale. This takes a few minutes once you have set up your competency framework.

During the session, you record voice notes against specific competency indicators in real time. No typing while watching. No transcription later. Observe captures the note, attaches it to the indicator, and timestamps it.

After the session, Observe uses AI to convert your voice observations into structured written notes. The transcription is organised by competency indicator, patterns across observations are surfaced, and the language is shaped into something appropriate for a professional client report. The practitioner reviews, edits, and finalises before anything goes to the client. The output looks deliberate, not dictated.

Observe is available on Studio and Atelier plans. The monthly voice note allowance is 120 minutes on Studio and 300 minutes on Atelier. Top-up is available at five credits per 30 minutes.

Reflect — 360 multi-rater feedback, managed from one place (launching soon)

Running a 360 programme involves more logistics than the instrument itself: identifying raters, sending surveys, chasing completions, compiling results across rater groups, and producing a report that is actually useful for development rather than just statistically accurate.

Reflect will handle the logistics so the practitioner can focus on the insight.

Reflect will be available on Studio and Atelier plans.

Refine — Reports that look like they came from your practice

The last thing most practitioners want is a report that is stamped with someone else's platform name. Refine is the module that ensures your client sees your firm's work, not Guild's infrastructure.

On PAYG, you upload your logo and work from the default Guild report template. The report looks clean and professional. The Guild attribution is present.

On Studio, you choose from multiple branded templates — each configured with your firm's logo, colours, and typography. You can maintain separate templates for different clients.

On Atelier, Guild's branding is removed from all client-facing output — including the candidate portal. Your client sees your firm's identity at every touchpoint.

Reports export as PDF. The export process is immediate — there is no rendering queue or formatting step to manage.

The flow, end to end

For most assessments, the workflow looks like this: Set up the assessment in Assess. Send the participant link. Monitor completion. For an assessment centre, run Observe during the live session to capture behavioural notes. Compile everything in Refine — review scores, add narrative, finalise the layout. Export the branded PDF. Deliver to client.

In both cases, the work that used to happen across four or five separate tools happens in one place. The time saving is not marginal — it compounds across every client engagement.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need to build a new assessment for each client?

No. Assessments can be duplicated and reconfigured for new client engagements. If you use the same competency framework across multiple clients, you build it once and adapt the deployment per client.

How does Guild handle data privacy across different client accounts?

Each Guild account operates in an isolated environment. Participant data for Client A is not visible to anyone outside that account, including the Guild team.

Can multiple practitioners in my firm work on the same assessment?

Yes. Studio supports up to three practitioner seats, Atelier up to ten. Practitioners in the same account can access shared assessments, divided by permission level.

Is there a minimum number of participants for an assessment?

No minimum. Guild works for a single-participant coaching assessment or a cohort of several hundred. The credit consumption adjusts for participant count.

Frequently Asked Questions