What do you do if your engineering team has skill gaps?

Identifying skill gaps in an engineering team is crucial. Start by assessing each member's expertise through self-evaluations and peer reviews. Analyze project requirements to pinpoint technical skills needed. Review past performances for recurring challenges. Establish feedback channels for open communication. Benchmark against industry standards and anticipate future needs. Use specialized tools for thorough analysis. Seek external input for market alignment. These steps ensure targeted strategies to address deficiencies and enhance performance.

To understand what are the skill gaps, first step is to understand what's the reason behind the same. At times, teams capability is upto date or on mark, but they just need differential capability upskilling. To do this, spend time in having a dialogue between the team member and subject matter expert and determine areas which require focused attention.

I see skill gaps as a potential plus! Delegation can be clear-cut when this happens, depending on which team member is best at which skill. Being transparent with the team is important. Making the point that we all have our "best" skills and skills that we are not the best at. When the team knows their individual "fortes", a leader need not manage so granularly; as the team knows who will be best to do the work. Additionally, training on the skills that are less than "best" is essential. Continuous education is key for the team and the lead! Then the gap narrows.

A skills gap assessment (SGA) is an important activity to analyse the possible gaps. SGA is a snap-shot of your current actual knowledge level which correlates to the skills you currently possess. SGA data establishes a measurable baseline prior to the implementation of skill improvement initiatives.

I found that when I spend time with team members as they work on their tasks helps me get a better idea of their capabilities and limitations. This helps identify gaps more accurately and faster.

I'm a firm believer in continuous professional development (CPD). I encourage all my teams to conduct some form of regular (i.e. weekly) CPD. Sometimes it doesn't need to be formally planned, just let the team take turns to pick a topic of have them vote on topics that are of interest / relevant. We've had a lot of success doing this, watching a conference talk on the topic on YouTube then having a discussion about it.

To address skill gaps, create tailored training plans by assessing your team’s needs. Develop programs that include workshops, online courses, and certifications, along with hands-on learning. Encourage peer-to-peer learning and use e-learning platforms for flexibility. Set clear learning objectives and track progress to ensure effectiveness. Regularly update training to align with industry trends and technological advances, keeping your team at the forefront of innovation. This continuous education approach bridges skill gaps and enhances your team’s overall capability and adaptability.

Post identification of the skill gaps, it is time to determine what could be a potential method to overcome these gaps. Few examples: 1) Create skill based training programs and induct people to such training programs. 2) Create a live project experience or proof of concept (POC) which could help engineers with fixing skill gaps in a live environment 3) Identify mentors and assign to people to fill in skill gaps. These are few potential ways to overcome skill gaps.

Set Clear, Achievable Goals Together with the developer, set specific, measurable, and realistic goals for improvement. These should be directly tied to the areas where gaps have been identified. Ensure these goals are achievable and provide a timeline for reaching them.

Sometimes skill gaps can be addressed by using mentors to coach existing resources that have both the interest and basic understanding to learn the desired skillset. These mentors are typically subject matter experts that have the patience and ability to guide people.

While hiring talent is ultimate option, skill development is always a better option. It helps two ways, 1) Organisation tacit knowledge is better available with resources within the organisation. 2) Availability is guaranteed, yet it takes persistent effort to sell built talent. Once done, the sustainability is longer.

Hiring for short team (consultants) on a project/assignment basis or hiring permanent employee (longer term) can be options based on duration of the needs, time to fill the gaps, workforce and company strategy, budget etc. other option might be to use managed service or managed project model to complete work on time w/o having to build talent pool for context work that may not be part of the core strategy or easily available in mature market offering as a service.

Absolutely, hiring new talent is a great strategy to address skill gaps in your engineering team, especially for critical or specialized needs. Here's how it can fit into your plan: 1. Targeted Recruitment: Focus your hiring efforts on candidates with the specific skills your team lacks. Craft compelling job descriptions that highlight these needs. 2.Quick Integration: Consider onboarding specialists or experienced engineers who can hit the ground running and potentially mentor junior team members.

Skill levels of different team members are going to be different. Identifying areas for improvement are usually on managers radars but if one can also identify strengths and see if the strengths of team members can be shared via presentations, group projects and knowledge sharing sessions, a member with strengths in one area could cross train members who need support. This builds commaradery as we'll as presentstion skills and team working.

Even with skill gaps, your team is a valuable asset. Here's how to leverage strengths: 1. Play to individual strengths: Assign tasks that align with existing expertise. This boosts morale and utilizes their strongest abilities to contribute to the project. 2.Cross-train within the team: Team members with complementary skills can teach each other, fostering knowledge sharing and building a more well-rounded.

In large enterprises, you also have options to create stretch assignments, short term exchange of resources across teams to leverage strengths available in other parts of the organization. Within the team, building model around couple core experts augmenting with other less experience team members may work out well where over time team can grow and yield greater results.

The candidate's assessment of strengths and weaknesses also is crucial. The better the trainer understands the knowledge and skill strength level of a person, the better will be the training content and training. By promoting of team-oriented culture, one can utilize the member's strength to improve the skills level of other members.

If your engineering team has skill gaps then go for upskilling and reskilling. The process of learning new skillet, unlearning the old and obsolete skills and being ready for the jobs of the 21 st century is how you position your team as the top talent.

There are times when a project's schedule demands that outsourcing is employed. My goal when outsourcing an analysis is to have the analysis and report sufficiently detailed so that my team learns from the provided analysis. I also outsource with the intent of building an external relationship rather than a one-time staff augmentation.

This is a great strategy when deep subject matter expertise is required in a project (or a module of the project). In case your are requiring this expertise for majority of your projects, then it makes sense to build this expertise in-house, but sticking to your core competencies (hopefully knowing what they are!) should be the strategy.

Should title for this paragraph be "Outsource deliverables/project" or "Outsource expertise"?? Alternatively, it can be "Outsourced expertise".

The Not Invented Here Syndrome is real. You need to decide if you really need those skills in your team. Do they have strategic value in the context of your company or department's reason for being? Maybe the heavy lifting can be farmed out to a external concern that does have the necessary skills (and probably also economies of scale). If you require the skills in your team to build a subsystem, framework or library, consider the outsourcing option. Win-win thinking. Does it makes business sense to build it in-house? Sometimes we think about software components like we think about a toothbrush: "everybody wants one, everybody needs one, but nobody wants to use someone else's".

Everytime a new version of a software tool was launched, if have a 5-10 minute test given to reevaluate the team's capabilities on the tool. Speed and accuracy on the toold was evaluated each time. A pen or coaster or mouse pad etc were small rewards the winner would get, to help sure there was a motivation to complete the test.

Gamification of training and learning (e.g. Badges for skills) and periodic renewal of badge thru additional learning/refresh could be one way to ensure skills are kept up to date. Every few years, reassessment of maturity model may be another way to measure collective improvement of team/process/ecosystem.

Pairing up individuals - SME and skilled colleague is paired with a relatively less skilled colleague. Make the SME person responsible for the tasks both of them need to deliver. This pushes both individuals at the same time. One needs to up their leadership and delegation skills and the other needs to pick up pace to deliver alongside a seasoned professional.