When you have a look at the development plan in the CBC software, you will notice that it is structured around categories (each comes with a fat blue line) and competencies. Two or more competencies are grouped under a category, and they become visible when you click on a fat blue line. Each competency is shown in a separate light-grey line, which opens to reveal more information the moment you click on it.

For each competency your plan will show a level between 0 and 3, where 0 means that you have absolutely no knowledge or skills recorded; 1 means that you have acquired basic knowledge or skills, obtained by taking relevant courses or working through relevant literature; 2 means that you have shown to be able to do activities related to that competency, when help from more experienced people is available; and 3 means that you can work independently in the area defined by the competency.

For many competencies, level 3 is the defining qualification for attaining consultant status, but this is not the case for all competencies. Becoming a linguistics consultant requires that you have a reasonably good understanding of almost all domains of linguistics (equivalent to level 2), but a much deeper understanding (level 3) in some areas, particularly the area that you specialize in. See the next section for details on what is needed to qualify as a linguistics entity consultant.

For a structured list of all competencies, including their components, please refer to this page.

There are different kinds of categories under which the various competencies are grouped. The first large set of 10 categories are the

General Consultant Competencies

1. Interpersonal Skills

2. Mentoring

3. Working in a Multicultural Environment

4. Language and Culture

5. Adult Education

6. Scholarship and Documentation

7. Technology for Consulting

8. Consulting Process Skills

9. Program Design and Engagement

10. Relating to other Organizations

The competencies listed under these categories are the same for all consultants of all domains. Many of these are best attained by taking consultant skills workshops and similar training events of a more general nature, not specific to linguistics. The level that must be attained to qualify as an entity consultant is specified in the fat blue line of each category. For several of these competencies, the highest level 3 is required.

The next set of four categories are the

Linguistic Core Competencies

1. Phonology

2. Grammar

3. Lexicon and Discourse

4. Language and Speakers

For these competencies, all consultants need to have a basic knowledge, but a deeper expert knowledge is not rquired for all of them. In practice this means that, in order to qualify as an entity consultant, you need to bring all competencies up to level 2 in these categories. Level 2 implies that you have basic knowledge and skills, and you can be counted on to do them when expert help is available.

Another category of three comptencies are the

Linguistic Practical Competencies

These competencies require a deeper level of knowledge than the linguistics core competencies. In the CBC software they are said to require 8 out of nine possible levels for qualifying as a consultant, but you should know that one of the two competencies that are required to reach level 3 needs to be "Writing and Presentation", as this competency really needs to be at a high level with every consultant. Which of the other two competencies is brought up to level 3 is between the consultant trainee and the mentor. 

The next set of two categories is about

Linguistic Related Fields

1. Translation for Linguists

2. Literacy for Linguists

These categories deal with things that are not strictly linguistics, but either are impacted by linguistic work, or they impact the work of linguists. "Translation for Linguists" contains three competencies, of which at least one needs to be brought up to level 3 for you to qualify as an entity consultant. This means that your total score is at least 7 out of a possible total of 9. "Literacy for Linguists" contains two competencies, and the total score for them needs to be 5. Again, level 3 is required for at least one competency.

The final set of three categories are the

Linguistic Consultant Specialisations

1. Phonology Specialisation

2. Grammar Specialisation

3. Discourse Specialisation

To qualify as an entity consultant, you need to attain fairly high levels in all competencies of just one specialisation. You are not required to complete any competencies of the other two specializations. Which of the three specialisations you pursue, or whether you pursue more than one, is entirely your choice based on your experiences and professional interests. Depending on the specialization, you need to bring all competencies (such as for Discourse) or at least most competencies (such as for Grammar and Phonology) up to level 3, which means that you need to have strong skills and deep understanding in your area of specialisation.

When you click on a grey-shaded line belonging to an individual competency, more information unfolds providing a more detailed competency description, sub-components of that competency, and a rationale justifying why this competency is needed for a consultant (called competency instructions).

The components listed with each competency provide further details as to what kind of skill or knowledge belongs to the competency. Some of these components may be related to higher levels of the competency, while others are rather basic. Some components refer to knowledge which may be gained by taking a training or by studying particular literature, whereas other components are expressed in terms of skillsets and practical experience. This may also provide guidance to the CiT and the mentor as to whether a certain component is attained at a higher or a lower level.

Another thing that becomes visible when clicking on a competency is a line called "assigned activities." For the CiT, this line only has content when it has been provided by the mentor. This activity will be an agreed-upon next step towards making progress to a higher level for this competency. The CBC contains many suggestions for activities in the general consultant competencies, but so far very few have been developed for the linguistic competencies of any category. This will hopefully change soon. The mentor can always assign tailor-made activities to the CiT.

A much faster (and for most competencies currently the only) way to look at possible resources and activities for a given competency is to consult this page. It contains all the activities and resources suggested in the CBC software, and a lot more, as it will take a while to add all these to the CBC website.

Whenever the CiT and the mentor agree that sufficient progress has been made on a given competency, the mentor can then move the level for this competency up using a slider. The software keeps track of progress, using a status bar to show how far the CiT is from attaining the qualification for a given category of competencies.

The software does not determine automatically when a person is an entity consultant. This decision is still left to the relevant area linguistics consultant committee. Once the mentor and the CiT conclude that all the necessary qualifications are attained, then the mentor can recommend that the CiT submits an application to the consultant committee.