Sprint to learn. Develop to lead.
Growthspace delivers focused skill sprints tied to business KPIs. Boon builds leadership capability over time through coaching, cohort programs, team workshops, and competency measurement that shows what actually changed.
Growthspace is a talent development platform that delivers focused skill sprints, typically 6-8 weeks, each tied to a specific KPI or business outcome. Managers nominate employees for sprints, employees choose their expert, and L&D teams track completion. Boon is a leadership development system built for sustained capability growth across five program formats: individual coaching (SCALE), manager cohorts (GROW), executive coaching (EXEC), team workshops (TOGETHER), and change management (ADAPT). The key difference: Growthspace optimizes for sprint completion and measurable KPI impact in the near term. Boon builds leadership behavior that compounds over time, measured against your competency framework.
“We can show sprint completion. Can we show leadership growth?”
Growthspace is excellent at what it is designed for: fast, targeted skill acquisition with clear KPI alignment. The question L&D teams run into is whether sprint completion is the right measure for leadership development. Can you close a 6-week sprint on “strategic communication” and call the capability built? The answer depends on whether you are solving a specific skill gap or building sustained leadership behavior.
The case for and against sprints.
Specific, defined skill gaps with clear before/after criteria
Short-term KPI alignment where the metric changes in 6-8 weeks
Rapid onboarding or role transition with time-bounded targets
L&D teams that need to show near-term ROI on a defined initiative
Leadership behavior that requires repetition and reflection to change
Manager skills that show up in team dynamics, not individual tasks
Executive capability where the growth curve is measured in quarters, not weeks
Competency improvement that needs to be shown to the board over time
Three ways ongoing development compounds.
Leadership sprints teach concepts. Sustained coaching reinforces behavior. The difference is visible in what happens after the program ends. Skills learned in a 6-week sprint without ongoing reinforcement regress. Coaching relationships built over months create behavioral change that holds.
Boon programs run long enough for coachees to try new behaviors, fail, adapt, and succeed. The multi-session arc is where real leadership growth happens.
A KPI tied to sprint completion tells you the sprint ran. A competency score taken before and after a coaching program tells you what capability changed. Boon's 23% average competency improvement is measured across the full program, not a 6-week window.
Pre and post assessments against your specific competency framework show which capabilities improved and which still need work. That data builds the long-term development picture.
Growthspace's manager involvement is at the nomination stage. Boon's manager involvement is structured throughout: kickoff alignment, mid-program check-in visibility, and closeout review with the employee and coach. That involvement is what connects coaching to the job.
When the manager can see what coaching is building and reinforce it in day-to-day work, behavior change accelerates. That loop doesn't exist in a sprint model.
Sprints vs. a development system.
Growthspace delivers targeted skill sprints. Boon is five connected programs that share context, data, and continuity as your people grow.
1:1 coaching for employees at every level. Not just executives.
Cohort-based manager development with peer learning and structured curricula.
Executive coaching for senior leaders with dedicated, long-term partnerships.
Team workshops and facilitated sessions for intact teams working through real challenges.
Change management coaching for organizations navigating transformation and strategic shifts.
All five programs share context and data. A manager in GROW and their direct report in SCALE are in the same system. Competency data flows across programs, so your L&D team sees the full picture, not five disconnected dashboards.
6-8 week focused development engagements tied to a specific skill and KPI, matched with a vetted expert.
Employees select their expert from a curated pool. Manager-nominated, employee-selected model.
KPI tracking, sprint completion, and skill progress reporting for L&D teams and managers.
Growthspace has strong G2 ratings (4.8/5) and L&D teams consistently cite the KPI-sprint model as easy to sell internally. The platform excels at discrete skill acquisition. It is not designed for ongoing leadership development measured over time.
Coaching that shows what actually changed.
session attendance vs. industry average of ~65%
average competency improvement across Boon programs
Net Promoter Score from coaching participants
Across 110+ enterprise clients. Sprints show completion. Boon shows what changed.
Compare the details.
Competency alignment
Coaching, assessments, and goals mapped to your organization's competency framework
Sprint skills can be configured to organizational priorities. Less tied to a formal competency framework than ongoing coaching programs
Program configuration
Every program configured to your pressure points. No two implementations look the same
L&D teams build sprint templates. High configurability at the sprint level for skill targets and KPI alignment
Coach context
Coaches briefed on your culture, competencies, and specific development goals
Experts matched to skill need. Organizational culture context in the expert brief varies
Assessment integration
Pre/post assessments tied to your specific framework. Can integrate with existing 360 tools
Skill assessments within sprints. Less designed for integration with existing competency frameworks
Product architecture
Five programs: SCALE, GROW, EXEC, TOGETHER, ADAPT. Context carries between programs
Sprint-based architecture. Strong for targeted skill development. Not built for ongoing multi-program development
Where Growthspace wins, and where Boon wins.
KPI-sprint model: Near-term ROI is built into the design. Easy to sell internally to leadership
G2 ratings: 4.8/5 with consistent user satisfaction in the L&D community
Expert marketplace: Employee choice in expert selection drives engagement and ownership
L&D control: Sprint templates give L&D teams direct control over development priorities and skill targets
Sustained behavior change: Coaching programs long enough for real leadership growth to occur
Competency measurement: 23% average improvement tracked against your specific framework
Manager involvement: Structured tri-party alignment that connects coaching to the job
Five program formats: Coaching, cohorts, exec, team workshops, change management in one system
Usage-based pricing: Pay for coaching that gets used
Growthspace and Boon are built for different questions. Growthspace answers “did we close that skill gap?” Boon answers “how much did our leaders grow, and how do we know?” If you need both, they can coexist. If you need to choose, decide which question matters more to your leadership team.
More comparisons
Questions we hear from L&D leaders.
Growthspace is a sprint platform: 6-8 week focused engagements tied to a specific skill and KPI. Boon is an ongoing leadership development system with programs that run long enough for real behavior change to occur. Both measure outcomes, but they measure different things. Growthspace measures sprint completion and KPI impact. Boon measures competency growth against your framework over a full program arc. The right choice depends on whether you are solving a specific skill gap or building sustained leadership capability.
Growthspace works well for targeted skill development with a clear near-term KPI. For leadership development in the fuller sense, it has limitations. Leadership capabilities like strategic communication, conflict navigation, and team dynamics are not built in 6-week sprints. They require sustained practice, coaching, and reinforcement. If your goal is measurable leadership capability growth over a program year, ongoing coaching and cohort programs produce better results than episodic sprints.
Growthspace uses sprint-based pricing tied to number of sprints and population size. Boon uses usage-based pricing tied to actual sessions delivered. Both require custom enterprise quotes. The structural difference is that Growthspace pricing is tied to sprint commitments, while Boon pricing aligns to actual utilization. For organizations still learning what coaching uptake will look like, usage-based pricing reduces the financial risk.
Sprints work best when the development goal is specific, time-bounded, and tied to a near-term business outcome. Examples: a manager taking on a new function, a leader preparing for a board presentation, an employee moving into a first management role. Ongoing coaching works better when the goal is sustained behavior change, long-term leadership growth, or when competency improvement needs to be shown over multiple assessment points.
Growthspace measures skill progress within sprints and KPI completion. It is not designed for competency growth measurement across an extended program. If you need to show how specific leadership competencies changed from the start to the end of a 6-12 month program, that is outside Growthspace's core design. Boon measures competency growth against your framework with pre and post assessments, averaging 23% improvement across client programs.
See coaching that shows what actually changed.
30 minutes. We will walk through how Boon measures competency growth and what a leadership development program looks like when it connects to your specific framework.
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