CWA Blog Archive-(Route)Setting Good Standards Professional Development Days

(Route)Setting Good Standards Professional Development Days

Pdf Summary

This article advocates professional development days for routesetting teams, framing them as increasingly important as routesetting becomes recognized as a more long-term professional career path. To keep setters growing, gyms should evaluate what professional opportunities they offer, and scheduling a PD Day is one option, though what it looks like varies by team needs. The author shares their own experience organizing a first PD Day a few weeks before their gym reopened during the pandemic, to let everyone brush up on technical skills they may have fallen out of practice with during closure. To make it interactive, the author created a Jeopardy-like board with tasks such as use the angle grinder to chop a broken t-nut off a hold and demonstrate what to look for when inspecting a rope for retirement. The timing served a second purpose: the author had just hired a new setter and saw the PD Day as a team-building way to orient him to protocols, rather than waiting to demonstrate on the fly when time might be tight and stressful. Having everyone demonstrate the skills ensured the team was on the same page regarding procedures and let the author, as the new Head Setter, identify who was comfortable doing certain things. The throughline is that professional development days are a valuable, flexible tool for keeping routesetting teams skilled, aligned, and growing, especially as setting professionalizes into a genuine career path.

Asset Caption

This piece advocates professional development days for routesetting teams as setting professionalizes into a career path. The author shares organizing a PD Day with a Jeopardy-style board of real skills, t-nut removal, rope inspection, which refreshed techniques, standardized procedures, onboarded a new setter in a team-building way, and let the head setter assess everyone's comfort levels.