Competence assessment of IT specialists
What should be the assessment of the competencies of employees and how to build a system using the example of product managers. Shared by the author telegram channel for products Alexey Arefiev.
The question of team development periodically appears in the head of different leaders. Whether you are in charge of a product, development, analytics, or something else, the task does not change – you need to:
gather people around
focus on goals
and pump so that they can quickly reach the same goals
Over the past few years, I have been thinking a lot about team development. I tried different practices: somewhere I went through training programs, somewhere I studied materials on pumping, and somewhere I experimented with my guys. As a result, I assembled a model that you can use and customize for yourself. I’ll tell you about her.
Competence assessment is
Competency assessment is the process of identifying and analyzing the skills that an employee should have in a particular position or position. This activity allows companies not only to check the qualifications of their employees, but also to form individual development plans for them, which leads to the overall evolution of the company.
Competency assessment: a short process
The system looks like this (see below).
Logics:
we collect competencies for a specific position / position that we want to evaluate and upgrade
preparing a template for evaluation
we send it to the person we want to evaluate, so that he puts points
in parallel, we ourselves evaluate it from our side
we meet and discuss marks for each competency
decide which ones we will take for pumping
we form a development plan
develop
repeat the cycle
Now let’s not be short.
Competence set
In order to evaluate someone and then pump them over, you need a set of competencies. These are criteria that will help you look at a person from different angles and determine his compliance with the position.
Usually the list is formed on the basis of:
market requirements
job analysis
conversations with hr
one’s own expectations
somehow else…
The output is a list of items, for each of which you need to collect a brief description so that the employee then understands what they want from him.
Competency list example
The number of criteria can vary greatly depending on the position, position, and much more. When I collected a list for a product manager, I did not set myself any clear boundaries, rather, I started from what the market already offered. Well, then I synchronized it with my expectations from the employee.
So, the criteria are collected, let’s move on.
Evaluation Template
Now you need to assemble a competency assessment template that the employee and you, as his manager, will fill out.
As a format, I suggest using tables. They are easy to manage and share well in the case of the same Google docks.
I will immediately give a ready-made evaluation template for the product, which can be easily adapted to suit you – https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1kX8gfN-oQEdAcaE8UufSwyuDumDyfwk_BN6NBJvCKbk/edit?usp=sharing
And now I’ll tell you about the logic of its assembly.
Since we will send the template to the employee, it would be nice to insert instructions for using it right inside the file. This will avoid future questions like “Why should I? What to do? How to do?” and save you time in the future.
The instruction consists of two parts:
tasks that competency assessment solves (the answer to the question “Why?”)
algorithm or “how it works”
The tasks of the manager and the product may differ, so it is better to formulate them separately.
Example instructions and tasks.
The task that competency assessment solves
For a product – getting a critical look from the outside and understanding the competencies that need to be downloaded for further career development.
For the manager – understanding what exactly to download from the employee for the overall development of the team.
The algorithm or “How it works” tells what exactly needs to be done by the participants in the assessment.
The model is based on a point system. For each competency, the employee and his manager give points from 1 to 10, where 1 means no knowledge of a particular competency, and 10 means mastery.
The following outlines the major steps that need to be taken throughout the assessment.
At the output, the finished instruction looks like this.
The task that the assessment solves
For a product – getting a critical look from the outside and understanding the competencies that need to be downloaded for further career development.
For the manager – understanding what exactly to download from the employee for the overall development of the team.
How it works
– the product will speed itself up according to the list of competencies below: put down marks from 1-10 (1 I don’t understand anything about it, 10 – I’m a pro) for each item
– the product manager (product lead, CPO or someone who manages the products) does the same and, for his part, evaluates the product according to the same criteria
– then the product meets with the manager and they discuss the results of the assessments: where it coincided, where it didn’t, why
– at the end of the meeting, the main competencies are fixed, which should be emphasized in the development
– then the manager draws up a plan for the individual development of the employee (articles, materials, courses and other activities) and transfers it to the product
– the product leaves to be pumped and at the next assessment of competencies (somewhere in a quarter) the new assessment is compared with the previous one
Thus, the development of the employee and his qualifications takes place, which strengthens the team, the company and the product as a whole.
Now let’s move on to the main part of the template. In the finished file, which I shared above, the table lies immediately after the instructions on the same sheet, which allows participants to immediately understand what needs to be done and where.
The table itself consists of several columns (from left to right):
– serial number
– previously collected competencies
– a brief description of them
– employee appraisal
– manager’s assessment
– weighted estimate
An example of a compiled table.
When the entire list of competencies is entered into a table, it can turn out to be a long string that is difficult to work with. Break it into semantic blocks, if possible, this will simplify the template and add structure to it.
In the product example, I broke the list into 4 parts:
strategy
data
execution
communication
And within them grouped competencies.
It turned out like this.
Now the template is ready and it’s time to move on to action. The assessment of competencies, of course, will not do without the assessment itself.
Grade
This is an individual work that needs to be done by the employee and his manager.
What to do:
the manager sets up a meeting with the employee
Inside, the goals of the meeting are described and an assessment template is attached.
before the meeting, we ask the employee to fill out the template and put down the scores for competencies in the appropriate column
In parallel with this, the manager creates a copy of the template for himself and fills it out for the employee for the meeting.
An example of a completed template by an employee.
An example of a completed individual template by a manager.
Important! The manager and employee should not see each other’s assessments before the meeting, this will allow you to get a real look without the influence of the other side.
Let’s go to the meeting.
Meeting and discussion
There comes a long-awaited meeting where the employee and his manager come with completed templates.
We take the employee template and go from top to bottom: we ask the employee to reveal the meaning of the assessment. It is necessary that a person tell why he set himself this particular figure for a specific criterion.
After that, you, as a manager, name your assessment and also explain its meaning. Enter the employee into the template in the column next to it.
It turns out like this.
In practice, the following situations with estimates can be obtained:
the employee’s grades and yours match
roughly the same (+/- 1 point)
vary greatly
Now that you and the employee have scored, your job is to agree on a final weighted score. Discuss and choose the number that you enter in the appropriate column.
Like this.
Not necessarily a weighted score, it is the average between two scores. During the dialogue, you can agree with the employee on his assessment or, on the contrary, agree on your own. Competency assessment is a two-way process. We are not trying to convince the other, but we are trying to objectively look at a particular skill.
Further, the exercise is repeated throughout the list until the entire table is filled with points.
Something like this.
Now we turn to the analysis of the results.
Analysis of results
You are still in a meeting with your employee, you have a completed table in front of you. The lowest weighted scores are zones that need to be pumped.
For example, highlighted in red.
This means that the employee first of all needs to pay attention to these competencies. That is, these are growth zones that will allow you to grow in the profession.
In practice, there can be many such zones and this is normal, but … But it is impossible and inefficient to take and pump everything at once. Discuss with the employee what 2, maximum 3 competencies need to be worked out first of all.
After the competencies are selected, the meeting ends and you, as a leader, take a break to digest the development plan.
I will make a reservation that the employee himself can think about upgrading competencies, but you are the main driving force.
Development plan
You are alone with yourself, look at the competencies that need to be upgraded from an employee and think about how to do it.
There are several options:
if there is a budget for training or a pumped hr, then buy courses / programs / trainings
when you yourself have the necessary knowledge, you can transfer it to your colleague: a personal seminar, a lecture will do
or you know good articles, books, videos on the topic, then throw it at the employee
There is another strong practice that was tested in our team. After we evaluated 4 products, we chose competencies for development, each of the guys took on the following task:
– put together a presentation on the competence that he had to download
– tell it to the rest of the team so that everyone understands and understands
Thus, everyone dug and collected material on a focal topic, and when they prepared a story, they tried to understand it in order to convey it to others.
Total: weekly presentations on various topics from the products, plus, the strengthening of the entire team. At the time of writing, this is the best I have seen or tried. In combination with seminars, courses, it gives a very good result.
So, you choose practices for upgrading competence, form a list and send it to an employee. He pumps himself, and at the same time the whole team.
We repeat the cycle
In order for the evaluation, together with the entire development plan, not to be in vain, progress tracking and periodicity are required. Schedule the next meeting with the employee in 3-4 months. This period of time is enough for a person to increase his level and to see the trend of his development.
You meet again, rate the pattern, and so on. Only after you get your weighted scores, compare them to the previous iteration. See what has grown and what needs to be strengthened.
Then another 3-4 months will pass and you will meet again at the assessment. Then you know what to do…
Such a system ensures the continuous strengthening of your team, and therefore yourself.
Competency assessment: nuances
Unfortunately, there are no ideal processes. People, this is not a program that systematically performs its function, hence the evaluation process must take into account several nuances.
What:
the system does not work with employees who are not interested in training
the system does not work with managers who are afraid of competition
in order for knowledge to become core during the development process, the employee needs to use it in their work, which means that you, as a manager, will have to provide appropriate tasks
when an employee begins to learn and grow in competencies, he will want to grow in responsibility, money and influence, this is normal, the only question is whether you can prepare for this in advance
And yes, this whole development system requires a lot of energy from the leader. Ultimately, you will think: “Why do I need all this? If that’s the case, you have to plow.” But on the other hand, you yourself chose the path of a manager, which means that you should be kind to take care of and develop your team, because it is she who will help you reach your cherished goal.
