The Trait Catalogue holds the definitions used to examine a cultural question in HEPO. The platform includes supplied traits, anti-traits and people attributes. Your organisation reviews that material, decides what to adopt or change, and owns the resulting working vocabulary.
This guide prepares a small first set of definitions with the people who will use and interpret them.
Gather the language of the work
Look at three layers together: conventions establish expectations, customs describe recurring collective practice, and habits describe patterns people carry into daily work. Ask what follow-through, mentoring or constructive challenge looks like in the actual setting.
Include operators and participants alongside the people responsible for the programme. A value statement can supply direction; the definition needs enough detail to support an appropriate inquiry.
Understand the structures you are authoring
| Structure | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Traits | Named characteristics, their meaning and the evidence relevant to them |
| Anti-traits or anti-patterns | Defined patterns of concern to examine, without turning a label into a verdict |
| Categories | Classification of the relevant records and definitions |
| Feature groups, features and options | A structured way to describe characteristics such as skills, certifications or proficiency |
These structures have related but distinct jobs. A category is not a cultural judgment, and a recorded feature does not validate a trait measure by itself.
Give each first definition a usable basis
Record the name in the organisation's language, the intended meaning, the subject and context, the relevant evidence, the review period and the responsible owner. Identify available version or change history and the approval needed before the definition is used.
For every candidate evidence source, ask what it can establish and what it leaves out. Include relevant participant accounts. Missing records should remain visible as missing rather than becoming a low score by default.
Work through three examples
Follow-through: examine agreed commitments, completion, changes and reasons for delay. A dependency outside the person's control matters to the interpretation.
Collaboration: examine shared work, handoffs, recognition and the participants' accounts. More messages do not necessarily mean better collaboration, and absence from one channel may reflect another working practice.
Consistency: examine comparable work across periods with stable definitions. Attendance alone does not establish engagement or character; differences in opportunity, schedule and responsibility may explain a pattern.
The examples are starting questions, not universal formulas. A definition entered in the catalogue still needs to be appropriate to its intended use.
Prepare the first release of the vocabulary
- Convene the authors and identify the first practical question.
- Review supplied definitions and draft a small, relevant set.
- Specify any anti-patterns, categories and features needed for that question.
- Establish supported evidence bindings and relationships with the implementer.
- Review ownership, access, change history and approval.
- Walk a sample record through the definition before the first evaluation.
Start narrow. If the intended behaviour cannot be observed with the available evidence, revise the question or obtain a more suitable basis. Configuration and deeper implementation changes should be distinguished when planning the work.
Use the reading responsibly
The Evaluation Engine interprets the supported evidence against the configured definitions. Culture Index supplies the resulting composite context where configured. Reviewers need the basis, limits and appropriate access to understand the result.
Visibility Without Surveillance explains the trust purpose. The first-reading tutorial takes the next step; reading programmes explains the continuing practice.