In the earliest days of my tenure there was no company wide progression framework, so I developed my own. Or at least a mental model of one in order to help support employees develop their training programme.
Each employee had an initial session where we talked open and frankly about any goals they may of had, what motivated them and whether they saw themselves as individual contributors or people managers.
Meanwhile I helped HR develop the demonstratable characteristics we expected to see in individuals at different levels of competency. These levels and their descriptions form part of the performance reviews each employee now undertakes bi-annually. Although I would highly recommend these being quartlery if you can.