The definition
A competency framework is a written set of the competencies an organization expects from its people, each defined at several levels, and mapped to the roles where it applies. It is the reference document behind promotion criteria, role definitions, and most structured development conversations.
A usable one is smaller than people expect. Eight to twelve competencies covers most organizations. Past that, nobody holds the framework in their head, and a framework nobody can recall does not influence the decisions it was written to influence.
Writing levels that mean something
The test of a level description is whether two managers reading it would look for the same evidence. Communicates well fails that test — it is a quality, and everyone measures it against their own standard. Writes the update before being asked for it passes, because it describes something that either happened or did not.
Levels should also describe a change in kind, not a change in adjective. Good, very good and excellent is not a progression, it is one description with volume controls. Does the work, improves how the work is done, changes what work the team takes on is a progression, because each rung is a different behaviour.
Keeping it alive
Frameworks decay by addition. Every review cycle surfaces something the framework did not cover, and the easy fix is to add a competency. Five years of that produces a document of thirty entries that describes a person who has never existed.
The discipline is to treat additions as replacements. If something genuinely needs to be in the framework, something else has stopped earning its place — and being forced to name what makes the framework better in both directions.