Speaking Powers Product Development Programme
A strategic roadmap for transforming Stage Heroes' Speaking Powers framework into a commercially viable self-discovery and team development tool, at a fraction of full psychometric development cost.
Executive Summary
Stage Heroes has developed a rich, practitioner-derived communication style framework, the 12 Speaking Powers, over more than a decade of workshop delivery. This proposal sets out a pragmatic, affordable route to productising that framework as a commercially scalable tool, without the cost and complexity of full psychometric validation.
The Speaking Powers model classifies communicators across 12 archetypes, split between Animated (Comedian, Storyteller, Teacher, Energy Bomb, Persuader, Improvisor) and Calm (Peaceful Panda, Investigator, People Magnet, Straight Shooter, Scholar, Diplomat) poles. It further distinguishes between Core (innate), Learned (developed through life experience), and Hidden (aspirational) powers, giving each participant a layered, nuanced profile.
Following an initial audit of the existing assessment materials, question bank, and supporting content, Psychometric Studio recommends positioning Speaking Powers as a developmental self-discovery tool rather than a psychometric test, with two commercially distinct products. This proposal presents three delivery options: an AI-automated self-discovery approach (lowest cost, fastest to market), a validated psychometric partnership using established instruments via Psytech/Podium365 (strongest credibility for corporate clients), and the full psychometric validation route (included for reference only). Each option addresses different trade-offs between cost, credibility, speed, and IP ownership.
"The Speaking Powers Survey is a developmental self-discovery tool designed to help individuals and teams identify, understand, and develop their communication strengths. It is not intended for selection, screening, or clinical purposes. It draws on 10+ years of practitioner experience in communication coaching and public speaking development."
Why Not Full Psychometric Validation?
Full psychometric validation is the gold standard for selection and clinical tools. But for Speaking Powers, it's the wrong tool for the job. Here's why.
What Full Validation Would Require
Developing Speaking Powers as a formally validated psychometric instrument would involve a rigorous, multi-phase process:
- Phase 1: Item review & refinement: Systematic expert review of all items, cognitive interviews with test-takers, rewriting and piloting. (2–3 months, €5,000–€8,000)
- Phase 2: Pilot study (n=300–500): Administer the revised instrument to a large sample. Run exploratory factor analysis to test whether the 12 types hold up statistically. Examine internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha) for each scale. (3–4 months, €8,000–€15,000)
- Phase 3: Validation study (n=400–600): Confirmatory factor analysis on a fresh sample. Convergent and discriminant validity against established instruments (e.g. Big Five, DISC). Test-retest reliability over 4–8 weeks. (4–6 months, €15,000–€25,000)
- Phase 4: Norming & technical manual: Establish normative tables by age, gender, industry. Write a formal technical manual documenting all psychometric properties. (2–3 months, €5,000–€10,000)
Total estimated investment: €35,000–€60,000 over 12–18 months, and that's before any platform build or report design. The total programme including platform could exceed €80,000–€100,000.
Why It's Not the Right Path
- The 12-factor structure may not survive: Our audit suggests Scholar/Teacher/Investigator and People Magnet/Diplomat likely overlap significantly. Factor analysis could force you to collapse types, breaking the very framework your workshops are built on.
- Core vs. Learned distinction is hard to validate: The distinction relies on self-reported effort/energy. Research consistently shows people are poor at distinguishing learned automaticity from innate preference. This would be flagged in any formal validation.
- The use case doesn't require it: Speaking Powers is not being used for hiring, selection, or clinical decision-making. Formal validation is designed to protect against high-stakes misuse. For a developmental self-discovery tool, it's over-engineering.
- Commercial risk is high: If the factor structure doesn't hold, you've spent €35,000–€60,000 and may need to redesign the entire framework.
The MBTI & Motivator Precedent
The most commercially successful personality frameworks in the world are not the most psychometrically rigorous. They're the ones people find most useful for self-reflection and team conversation.
The MBTI (Myers-Briggs Type Indicator) has been criticised for decades on psychometric grounds: poor test-retest reliability, forced dichotomies that don't reflect continuous distributions, weak predictive validity, and a factor structure that doesn't cleanly replicate. Wikipedia's opening line calls it "pseudoscientific." Yet it remains one of the most widely used personality frameworks globally, generating hundreds of millions of euros in annual revenue. Why? Because people find it useful. It gives teams a shared language. It creates coaching conversations. It drives self-awareness.
Similarly, Motivator assessments (DISC + Motivators, FindMojo, Motivation Code) have built large commercial businesses on frameworks that prioritise practical insight over academic rigour. These tools position themselves as self-discovery and development instruments, not psychometric tests, and their users don't care about Cronbach's alpha. They care about whether the results feel accurate, actionable, and worth talking about.
Speaking Powers can occupy exactly this space. The framework doesn't need to prove it measures 12 statistically independent constructs. It needs to prove it helps people understand how they communicate, where their blind spots are, and how to develop.
Audit Findings
Our review covered the presentation/workbook (78 slides), the test manual (v1), the full question bank (7 blocks), and the masters map linking Core Behaviours, Learned Origins, and Hidden Cues for each of the 12 powers.
Three-layer model: The Core / Learned / Hidden structure has genuine theoretical legs, mapping loosely onto trait psychology, social learning theory, and possible-selves theory respectively.
Substantial item bank: 7 blocks covering this-or-that forced choice, core energy items, pitfall recognition, learned power checks, learned origin scenarios, and hidden power admiration/aspiration rounds.
Rich developmental content: Exercises like "picture yourself at age 4" and peer-feedback tasks are coaching methodology at its best and ideal for workshop delivery.
10+ years of practitioner insight: The framework has been road-tested across hundreds of corporate workshops, giving it an experiential validity that many academic tools lack.
No documented theoretical framework: The "why 12?" question needs a narrative answer for credibility with corporate L&D buyers.
Likely factor overlap: Scholar/Teacher/Investigator and People Magnet/Diplomat may not be statistically distinct. This doesn't invalidate the model as a development tool, but needs acknowledging.
No scoring algorithm: Mixed item formats across 7 blocks without a documented scoring model. Needs formalising before any build.
Incomplete content: Several of the 12 powers have placeholder text in the current workbook. All 12 need complete descriptions, blind spots, superpowers, and exercises.
Recommended Products
Two distinct but complementary products, one for individuals, one for teams. Both positioned as developmental self-discovery tools.
Speaking Powers Self-Discovery Survey
A self-report survey (15–20 minutes) that generates a personalised report showing the participant's Core, Learned, and Hidden Speaking Powers, with blind spots, superpowers, and development tips.
- Standalone product for individual purchase or workshop inclusion
- Optional lightweight 360 component: 3–5 raters answering 12 forced-choice questions
- Self-vs-others gap creates powerful coaching conversations
- Rich, visually engaging report with developmental exercises
Speaking Powers Team Map
A team-level view aggregating individual results into a team profile showing distribution, gaps, and complementary pairings.
- Natural upsell from individual surveys for corporate clients
- Team gap analysis: "No one on this team is a Diplomat. Who can develop that?"
- Visual, shareable output for team workshops and off-sites
Option A: Offline Report Generator
The fastest and most cost-effective route to market. Instead of building or licensing an assessment platform, we create a standalone report generator that runs entirely on your laptop. No participant data ever leaves your machine.
The Traditional Approach (€15,000–€30,000+)
Build or license a bespoke survey platform with hard-coded scoring algorithms, template-driven report generation, and manual rater management. Every change to questions, scoring, or report content requires developer involvement. Ongoing hosting, maintenance, and support costs compound annually.
The Offline Report Generator (€2,000–€5,000)
Instead of building a custom platform or sending data to an AI service, we take a different approach entirely. Psychometric Studio pre-writes a comprehensive library of narrative building blocks: strong sentences, paragraph variants, blind spot descriptions, development tips, and coaching exercises for each of the 12 Speaking Powers across all three layers (Core, Learned, Hidden). These are crafted by a psychologist and polished to read as individually written prose.
We then build a lightweight report generator, a simple application that runs locally on your laptop, that assembles the right narrative blocks based on each participant's score profile. The result is a rich, personalised report that reads like it was written by hand, but is generated in seconds with no internet connection required.
How It Works
- Survey collection: Typeform or similar collects participant responses online. Cost: €0–€50/month depending on volume.
- Scoring: A simple spreadsheet or script calculates Core / Learned / Hidden scores from raw responses. Cost: included in Phase 1 design work.
- Report generation: You export the scores and run them through the report generator on your laptop. The generator selects and assembles the right pre-written narrative blocks for each participant's unique profile. No data is sent anywhere. No AI API calls. No internet connection needed.
- Quality control: You review each report before delivery (initially). As confidence grows, this can be reduced to spot-checking.
- Team Map: Individual scores are aggregated in a dashboard spreadsheet that auto-generates the team distribution view.
Why This Works
- GDPR-safe by design: No participant data is transmitted to any third-party service. Everything runs on your machine. This eliminates the need for data processing agreements with AI providers and removes any risk of personal data being used to train external models.
- No platform build required: Eliminates the single biggest cost item in traditional assessment product development.
- Rich, natural reports: Pre-written narrative blocks are crafted by a psychologist to read as individually written prose, not fill-in-the-blank template text. Because the content library covers every combination of types and layers, each report feels genuinely personal.
- Easy to iterate: Want to change a question, update a type description, or add new content? Edit the content library and the generator picks it up immediately. No developer needed.
- No ongoing subscription costs: Once built, the generator runs independently with no API fees, no hosting costs, and no dependencies on external services.
- You own everything: The content library, the generator, the scoring model. Full IP ownership with no vendor lock-in.
This is the same architecture Psychometric Studio uses for its own assessment reporting. All report generation happens offline, with no participant data ever sent to external AI services. The narrative content library is pre-built by a psychologist, and the generator assembles personalised reports locally. It's fast, it's GDPR-compliant by design, and it produces reports that are indistinguishable from hand-written practitioner reports.
Option A: Phased Plan & Cost Model
All costs below are indicative estimates to support decision-making. Final pricing will be confirmed once the preferred option and scope are agreed. Several phases involve collaborative work between Psychometric Studio and Stage Heroes, and pricing reflects this shared effort. Each phase includes a defined scope and up to two rounds of revisions. Additional iterations or scope changes beyond the agreed deliverables will be handled through a change order at an agreed day rate.
Collaborative review of the full question bank with Stage Heroes. Rationalise the 7 blocks into a streamlined, scoreable survey. Design the scoring algorithm that produces Core / Learned / Hidden profiles. Complete all 12 type descriptions, blind spots, superpowers, and exercises (working closely with Stage Heroes' existing content and practitioner expertise). Draft positioning language and user-facing disclaimers. Deliverable: finalised item set, scoring model, complete content library, survey specification document.
Write the full narrative content library: paragraph variants, strong sentences, blind spot descriptions, and development tips for each of the 12 Speaking Powers across all three layers. Build the offline report generator that assembles personalised reports from scores. Set up the survey in Typeform/Tally. Build the scoring spreadsheet/script. Create the Team Map aggregation template. Test end-to-end with 10–15 internal participants. Design the optional 360 rater questionnaire (12 forced-choice items). Deliverable: working survey → score → offline report pipeline, Team Map template, rater questionnaire.
Stage Heroes runs the survey with 50–100 workshop participants and gathers feedback on user experience, report clarity, and perceived value. This is Stage Heroes' time investment: collecting real data from live workshops to test the product in the field. Psychometric Studio is available for questions and light adjustments during this period. Deliverable: pilot data, participant feedback, refined product ready for commercial launch.
Once 200–300 completions have been accumulated organically, Psychometric Studio runs a lightweight statistical analysis: internal consistency of the 12 types, cluster patterns, self-vs-rater correlations. The results are published as a short white paper for the Stage Heroes website. Not full validation, but credibility evidence that answers "Is this legit?" for corporate buyers. Deliverable: white paper, data summary, updated positioning materials.
An optional annual engagement where Psychometric Studio reviews the accumulated data, checks statistical patterns, identifies emerging insights (e.g. common type combinations, industry-specific trends), and recommends updates to scoring, report content, or narrative blocks. Keeps the product fresh, evidence-informed, and improving over time. Deliverable: annual data review report, recommended updates, revised content where applicable.
| Phase | Timeline | Investment |
|---|---|---|
| Phase 1: Item Review, Scoring & Content | Months 1–2 | €2,500 – €3,500 |
| Phase 2: Report Generator & Survey Setup | Months 2–3 | €3,000 – €5,000 |
| Phase 3: Pilot & Soft Launch | Months 3–4 | Stage Heroes |
| Phase 4: Credibility Evidence | Months 8–12 | €1,500 |
| Total Programme | ~12 months | €7,000 – €10,000 |
| Phase 5: Annual Review (optional) | Yearly | €1,500 – €3,000/year |
Ongoing costs
€0 per assessment. The report generator runs locally on your laptop with no platform fees, no API costs, and no per-test charges. The only ongoing cost is the survey platform (Typeform or similar) at €0–€600/year depending on volume.
Option B: Validated Psychometric Partnership
Instead of building or validating a bespoke instrument, Stage Heroes can anchor Speaking Powers to an already-validated psychometric via an established assessment platform, inheriting decades of research credibility overnight.
The Concept
Psychometric Studio has existing partnerships with Psytech International and Podium365, both ISO 10667-compliant assessment platforms used by corporate clients across Europe. Through these partnerships, we can deploy validated personality instruments (the 15FQ+ or the PQ10) and build Speaking Powers report content on top of the validated score profiles.
In practice, this means: the participant completes a validated personality questionnaire on a professional, secure platform. Their personality scores are then mapped to the Speaking Powers framework using a custom scoring key that translates validated factor scores into Core, Learned, and Hidden power profiles. The output is a fully branded Speaking Powers report, underpinned by an instrument with published psychometric properties, norm tables, and a technical manual.
This is the same approach used by hundreds of commercial assessment brands. Many well-known leadership and team development tools are built on top of established personality instruments, adding proprietary interpretation layers, branded frameworks, and custom reporting while relying on validated measurement underneath.
Candidate Instruments
15FQ+ (Fifteen Factor Questionnaire Plus)
A comprehensive personality questionnaire measuring 16 primary personality factors plus the Big Five global factors. Published by Psytech International with extensive psychometric documentation.
- Factors: 16 primary scales + Big Five + social desirability. Rich enough to map all 12 Speaking Powers with good differentiation.
- Norms: Published international norms across industries, roles, and demographics.
- Credibility: Used by corporations, consultancies, and government agencies. Full technical manual available.
- Best for: Corporate clients who need maximum psychometric rigour, or engagements where assessment credibility is a deal-breaker.
PQ10 (Personality Questionnaire 10)
A shorter, Big-Five-based personality instrument. Faster to complete, still validated, but with fewer primary scales than the 15FQ+.
- Factors: 10 primary scales within the Big Five framework. More concise but may require broader mapping per Speaking Power.
- Completion time: Shorter than the 15FQ+, better participant experience for workshop settings.
- Best for: Workshop-led delivery where speed matters and the Speaking Powers narrative does the heavy lifting.
How It Works in Practice
- Assessment delivery: Participants complete the 15FQ+ or PQ10 online via the GeneSys or Podium365 platform. These are professional, ISO-certified, GDPR-compliant, and fully managed.
- Scoring key: Psychometric Studio designs a custom scoring algorithm that maps the validated personality factor scores to the 12 Speaking Powers across the Core / Learned / Hidden layers.
- Report generation: Custom-branded Speaking Powers reports are generated using the platform's report writer, with narrative content written and validated by a registered IO psychologist and psychometrist. Psychometric Studio has done this before for other clients.
- Administration: Stage Heroes gets a client portal to manage participants, send invitations, and download reports. No tech build required.
- Team Maps: Team-level aggregation and visualisation can be built into the reporting layer, just as in Option A.
Cost Model
As an existing Psytech partner, Psychometric Studio is able to offer significantly reduced setup pricing for the Speaking Powers scoring key and report development. Platform configuration and admin training are included at no additional charge. Please note that all costs in this section are indicative estimates to give an overview of the investment involved. Final pricing will be confirmed once the scope and instrument configuration are agreed. Report design includes up to two rounds of revisions. Additional iterations or scope changes will be handled through a change order at an agreed day rate.
| Item | Detail | Estimated cost |
|---|---|---|
| Scoring key development | Map 15FQ+/PQ10 factors → 12 Speaking Powers (typically €3,000–€5,000) | Included |
| Report template design | Branded Speaking Powers report on platform | €3,000 – €5,000 |
| Pilot & calibration | Test with 20–30 participants, refine mapping | Assessment credits (20–30 × applicable rate) |
| Total setup investment | €3,000 – €5,000 |
Ongoing Per-Test Cost
The platform operates on a tiered credit model. Each Speaking Powers assessment is estimated to use 6 to 10 credits, depending on the final instrument configuration and whether detailed sub-scores are required. The price per credit depends on annual volume:
| Annual credit volume | Price per credit | Cost per assessment (6–10 credits) |
|---|---|---|
| 1–250 credits | €8.00 | €48.00 – €80.00 |
| 251–1,000 credits | €7.20 | €43.20 – €72.00 |
| 1,001–5,000 credits | €6.40 | €38.40 – €64.00 |
| 5,001+ credits | €5.60 | €33.60 – €56.00 |
At 1,000 participants/year using 6–10 credits each, Stage Heroes would be purchasing 6,000–10,000 credits annually, placing the per-credit price at €5.60–€6.40 depending on total volume.
| Scenario | Credits used | Estimated annual cost |
|---|---|---|
| 1,000 participants × 6 credits (5,001+ tier) | 6,000 | €33,600 |
| 1,000 participants × 10 credits (5,001+ tier) | 10,000 | €56,000 |
Key trade-off: Option B gives Speaking Powers instant psychometric credibility backed by decades of validation research, but the per-test credit cost is an ongoing expense. At 1,000 participants/year, the assessment credits are estimated at €33,600–€56,000 annually depending on instrument configuration. This is commercially viable if Stage Heroes builds the credit cost into workshop pricing or charges participants directly for the validated assessment as a premium add-on.
What You Get
- Instant psychometric credibility: Published validity, reliability, and norms. No validation study required.
- ISO-certified platform: Professional delivery infrastructure with no build cost. GDPR-compliant out of the box.
- Established technology: Proven at scale across thousands of corporate clients. Reliable, secure, supported.
- Custom Speaking Powers brand: Participants see Speaking Powers, not 15FQ+. The validated instrument is the engine under the hood.
- Expert reporting: Report content is written and validated by a registered IO psychologist and psychometrist, producing polished, branded outputs grounded in professional expertise.
- Multi-language availability: The 15FQ+ and PQ10 are already available in dozens of languages out of the box. This is a significant advantage for international workshop delivery, and something the offline report generator would need to be manually translated for.
What You Give Up
- Full IP ownership of the measurement instrument: The 15FQ+ or PQ10 belongs to Psytech. Stage Heroes owns the Speaking Powers brand, content, and scoring key, but not the underlying assessment questions.
- Margin on the assessment itself: Every test costs between €33.60 and €56.00 in platform credits. This is a cost of goods to factor into workshop pricing.
- Independence: Stage Heroes depends on a third-party platform and publisher. Price increases, platform changes, or licensing terms are outside Stage Heroes' control.
- Flexibility: Changing questions or scales means working within the instrument's existing factor structure. The mapping can be refined, but the instrument itself is fixed.
Option B: Phased Plan
Select the optimal instrument (15FQ+ or PQ10) for the Speaking Powers mapping. Design the scoring algorithm that translates validated personality factor scores into Core / Learned / Hidden power profiles. Typically €3,000–€5,000 but included as part of the Psychometric Studio partnership.
Design and build the branded Speaking Powers report on the GeneSys/Podium365 platform. Configure the client portal, admin access, and participant invitation workflows. Platform setup and admin training are included at no additional charge. Deliverable: fully branded report template, configured platform, admin training completed.
Test with 20–30 participants. Review the Speaking Powers mapping against real score data, calibrate report narratives, and refine scoring if needed. Stage Heroes covers the assessment credits for pilot participants (estimated 20–30 assessments at the applicable credit rate). Psychometric Studio's calibration and refinement work during this phase is included. Deliverable: calibrated, launch-ready Speaking Powers product on a validated platform.
Same as Option A. Once 200–300 completions have been accumulated, Psychometric Studio runs a lightweight statistical analysis. With Option B, the credibility story is even stronger because the underlying instrument already has published psychometric properties. Deliverable: white paper, data summary, updated positioning materials.
| Phase | Timeline | Investment |
|---|---|---|
| Phase 1: Scoring Key & Instrument Selection | Month 1 | Included |
| Phase 2: Report Design & Platform Setup | Months 1–2 | €3,000 – €5,000 |
| Phase 3: Pilot & Calibration | Months 2–3 | Assessment credits only |
| Phase 4: Credibility Evidence | Months 8–12 | €1,500 |
| Total Programme | ~12 months | €4,500 – €6,500 |
Plus ongoing per-assessment credit costs as detailed above.
Side-by-Side Comparison
All costs are indicative estimates. Final pricing will be confirmed once the preferred option and scope are agreed.
| Dimension | Option A: Offline Report Generator | Option B: Validated Psychometric Partnership | Option C: Full Psychometric Validation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Setup investment | €7,000 – €10,000 | €4,500 – €6,500 | €48,000 – €88,000 |
| Time to market | 3–4 months | 2–3 months | 18–24 months |
| Cost per test (ongoing) | €0 (runs locally) | €33.60 – €64.00 (6–10 credits, tiered pricing) | €15 – €30 (platform hosting) |
| Annual cost at 1,000 participants | €0 | €33,600 – €56,000 (at highest volume tier) | €15,000 – €30,000 |
| Psychometric credibility | Practitioner-derived self-discovery tool, credibility evidence growing over time | Backed by validated instrument with published norms, reliability, and technical manual | Full validation (but high risk of factor structure failure) |
| Report quality | Offline generator, personalised narrative from pre-written content library | Platform report writer + narrative written by IO psychologist/psychometrist | Template-driven, formulaic |
| IP ownership | Full ownership of everything | Own the Speaking Powers brand, content, and scoring key, but not the underlying instrument | Full ownership of instrument and data |
| Platform | Typeform or similar (€0 – €600/year) | ISO-certified GeneSys or Podium365 (included in per-test cost) | Bespoke build (€15,000 – €30,000) |
| GDPR compliance | Strong: offline generator, no participant data leaves your machine. Only DPA needed with survey platform. | Platform-managed, ISO 10667-compliant | Self-managed (bespoke platform) |
| Language availability | Requires manual translation of narrative content library | Assessment available in dozens of languages out of the box | Requires manual translation |
| Scalability risk | Low, cost stays flat at scale | High, per-test cost compounds with volume | Medium, fixed platform, variable hosting |
| Credibility evidence | €1,500 (Statistical analysis after 200–300 completions) + optional annual review €1,500–€3,000/year | €1,500 (same analysis, plus validated instrument properties already documented) + optional annual review €1,500–€3,000/year | Built into validation programme |
| Recommendation | Best for speed, cost, and workshop-led delivery | Best for credibility-sensitive corporate clients | Not recommended |
Options A and B are not mutually exclusive. Stage Heroes could launch with Option A to get to market quickly and affordably, then offer Option B as a premium tier for corporate clients who need the credibility of validated psychometric measurement. A participant completes the 15FQ+ on the platform, receives a validated Speaking Powers report and pays a higher price reflecting the assessment credit cost. Meanwhile, workshop participants and individual buyers use the offline report generator at zero ongoing cost. Two tiers, one brand.
Note: The offline approach is not a compromise. It produces better reports than traditional template systems because the narrative blocks are written by a psychologist to cover every meaningful score combination. Each report reads as genuinely personal. And if Stage Heroes later adds Option B as a premium tier, the scoring model and content library built in Option A transfer seamlessly to the validated platform reports.
For Reference: The Full Psychometric Route
We do not recommend this path for Speaking Powers, but include it here for transparency so the investment and risk are clear.
| Phase | Timeline | Investment |
|---|---|---|
| Item review & refinement | 2–3 months | €5,000 – €8,000 |
| Pilot study (n=300–500) with factor analysis | 3–4 months | €8,000 – €15,000 |
| Validation study (n=400–600) with convergent/discriminant validity | 4–6 months | €15,000 – €25,000 |
| Norming & technical manual | 2–3 months | €5,000 – €10,000 |
| Platform build & report design | 3–5 months | €15,000 – €30,000 |
| Total | 18–24 months | €48,000 – €88,000 |
Key risk: Factor analysis in Phase 2 could reveal that several of the 12 types don't hold up as statistically distinct constructs. This would require restructuring the entire framework, potentially collapsing types that are central to the Stage Heroes workshop experience. You'd be spending €48,000–€88,000 with a real possibility of being told to redesign your product.
By contrast, the self-discovery positioning acknowledges upfront that the 12 types are practitioner-derived archetypes for self-reflection, not statistically independent psychological constructs. This is honest, defensible, and commercially strong, exactly the space occupied by MBTI, DISC, Motivator assessments, and dozens of other successful tools.
GDPR & Ethical Essentials
Even positioned as a self-discovery tool, Speaking Powers will process personal data that touches on personality and behavioural tendencies. Under GDPR, this constitutes profiling, and it needs to be handled carefully.
Why This Matters for Speaking Powers
Speaking Powers asks participants to answer questions about how they communicate, how they behave under pressure, and what their natural tendencies are. The output is a profile that categorises them into personality-adjacent types. While this is developmental rather than clinical, GDPR doesn't distinguish between "fun self-discovery" and "formal psychometric" when it comes to profiling obligations. The good news is that the offline report generator architecture significantly reduces your exposure, because no participant data is transmitted to any external service.
Data Protection
- Privacy notice: Clear notice explaining what data is collected, why, how long it's retained, and participants' rights. This must be presented before the survey starts.
- Lawful basis: Consent is the simplest and most appropriate basis for a voluntary self-discovery tool. Make sure consent is freely given, specific, informed, and unambiguous.
- Data Processing Agreement: Required with the survey platform (Typeform, Tally, etc.) since they store response data on your behalf. Not required for the report generator itself, because that runs locally on your machine.
- No external AI processing: The offline report generator means no participant data is sent to AI services like OpenAI or Anthropic. This is a significant privacy advantage and eliminates an entire category of GDPR risk. If you later choose Option B (validated psychometric platform), the platform provider handles this under their own ISO-certified data processing framework.
- Retention policy: Maximum 24 months for raw response data recommended. Set up automatic deletion in your survey platform.
- Right to explanation: Participants have the right to understand how their profile was generated. The scoring model should be explainable in plain language, and the report should include a clear description of how results were calculated.
- Data minimisation: Only collect what you need. Don't ask for demographic information unless it serves a specific developmental purpose.
Ethical Use
- Facilitators delivering feedback should receive administration training so they can guide participants through their results responsibly.
- Interpretation guidance should be built into the report itself, so participants who receive it outside a workshop setting can still make sense of it.
- Speaking Powers should never be used for hiring, selection, or screening. This should be stated explicitly in all materials, on the survey landing page, and in the report footer.
- Be transparent about what Speaking Powers is and isn't. It's a practitioner-derived development tool, not a clinically validated psychometric. Saying this openly builds trust rather than undermining it.
Intellectual Property
What Can Be Protected
- Trademark: "Speaking Powers" and the 12 type names should be trademarked in target markets.
- Copyright: Report content, exercises, question bank text, and visual design are automatically protected.
- Report generator and content library: The scoring logic, narrative content library, and report generator architecture are proprietary trade secrets.
What Cannot Be Protected
- The underlying model: The concept of "12 communication types in 3 layers" cannot be copyrighted or patented. Protection comes from brand, content quality, and market position, not the idea itself.
Recommended Next Steps
1. Decide on delivery model
Choose between Option A (offline report generator), Option B (validated psychometric partnership via Psytech/Podium365), or a two-tier model combining both. This decision shapes everything downstream: scope, budget, timeline, and commercial pricing.
2. Commission Phase 1 (€5,000–€8,000)
Regardless of delivery model, the foundational work is the same: item review, scoring design, and content completion for all 12 Speaking Powers. This phase serves both Option A and Option B.
3. Complete the presentation content
Several of the 12 Speaking Powers have placeholder text. All 12 need complete descriptions, blind spots, superpowers, and exercises before any report engine, whether AI or platform-based, can be built.
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Psychometric Studio · Specialist Talent Diagnostics · BeNeLux & DACH
psychometricstudio.com · Founded by Karina Olivier, HPCSA-registered IO Psychologist
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