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Skills Matrix

Rate each person against each skill, then let the matrix highlight where exactly one person can do something critical.

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Start from a real example

Pick one and change it to fit. Everything stays on this device. Nothing is uploaded.

Person
000

The row underneath counts people at level 2 or above: the ones who could carry the work without somebody checking it.

0 people, 0 skills, 0% of the grid assessed.

What this matrix is telling you

  • Nothing here yet. Put the people down the side and the skills across the top.

Frequently asked questions

The questions people actually ask about this document.

What is a skills matrix?
People down one side, skills across the top, and a level where they meet. It is useful for two things that are hard to see any other way: which skill rests on one person, and which skill nobody can teach. Both are sitting in the columns, and neither is visible from inside a team.
What should the levels mean?
Something you can check, rather than an adjective. The scale here is anchored in what somebody can be asked to do: has not done it, can do it watched, can do it alone, can do the hard cases, can teach it. Advanced and intermediate mean nothing you can argue with; can they teach it is a question with an answer.
Who fills it in?
The manager and the person, separately, and then compare. Self-assessment alone drifts in both directions and the directions are not random: people who are new overrate, people who are good underrate. The gap between the two numbers is usually a more useful conversation than either number.
What do I do about a skill only one person has?
Decide out loud whether you are accepting it. Sometimes you are, and writing that down is a reasonable answer. If you are not, the fix is slow and it is usually the same one: have the person who knows it do the next piece of that work with somebody beside them, and check in three months whether the column changed.
Who should be allowed to see it?
Treat it as a performance document, because that is what it is, whatever it is called. The team can usually see the columns, which is where the planning value is. The rows have individual names on them, and a grid of people's capabilities on a shared drive does more damage than the gap analysis was worth. Nothing here is uploaded, which is part of the same answer.
How often should it be updated?
Twice a year, or whenever the team changes. The number that matters is whether the single-point columns moved, and a matrix that comes out identical to last time is a matrix nobody used in between. If the only thing that changed is that somebody joined, update it in ten minutes rather than rebuilding it.

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