A skill mapping workshop for UX teams: let's get T-shaped

A skills mapping workshop is a great way to uncover the abilities of your UX team members and use them to their full potential, effectively mix and match with business objectives, and plan for the future by creating tailored development plans for each team member.?

What is a skill mapping workshop?

A skill mapping workshop is a strategic session where team members collectively assess their individual skills and competencies. The purpose of this exercise is to visually represent the abilities within a team or an entire organization, identify any skill gaps, and plan for future development needs.

I run the skills mapping workshop with my UX team as a part of Team Definition activities. In the long run, we aim to become T-shaped UX professionals, where each team member is a specialist in their chosen field and can support other team members when working on complex projects.

Here at Kistler, we work on complex software projects that require us to have deep knowledge of each product and its background, so for our team, it makes sense to broaden our skills and keep up with general knowledge, but also dig deep into specific topics and become an expert in specific UX field.?

Do you wonder if your team could benefit from similar activity? I believe it absolutely can so let's jump into how I planned the workshop and what were the outcomes.?

First I planned a 2 hour session for our team and I made sure to stress the importance of the skills mapping activities beforehand.

I divided the workshop into 5 stages:

Introduction and Objectives

Team Skills Assessment

Skill Gap Analysis

Action Planning and Strategy

Workshop Wrap-up and Next Steps

1. Introduction and Objectives:

I welcomed participants and explained the purpose of the workshop in depth.?

We discussed the importance of skills mapping and how it can benefit the team and the organization in the long run.

Then we set clear objectives for the workshop - what we want to achieve today and will the successful outcome look like.?

2. Team Skills Assessment:

Each team member received an Excel spreadsheet with a skills assessment sheet. Our sheet listed key UX skills such as user research, interaction design, visual design, information architecture, prototyping, usability testing, etc.

Earlier this year, I attended a DesignOps: Scaling UX Design and User Research from NNg, where we used the skill assessment sheets in the training. I have researched others, but to be honest, I found the NNg assessment sheet the best, so I decided to go with this one.?

I asked each participant to rate their proficiency in each skill on a scale (from 1-5, where 1 representing?least skilled and 5 representing most skilled).

Then I encouraged participants to be honest in their self-assessment. The goal is not to judge, but to understand where everyone stands and where the team can improve.

3. Skill Gap Analysis:

The NNg skill mapping sheet automatically creates a visualization of individual skills, as well as team skills. This allowed us to immediately see where we have gaps and where we need to depend on our knowledge, as well as where we have expertise in the team.?

4. Action Planning and Strategy:

We discussed the results of the skill gap analysis as a group and then brainstormed ways to address the identified skill gaps. This included?training programs, mentoring, and team development plans.

I created an action plan detailing how each skill gap will be addressed, who will be responsible, and a timeline for implementation.

5. Workshop Wrap-up and Next Steps:

I summarized the key findings and decisions from the workshop, discussed the next steps with the UX team, and thanked them for their valuable input and time.

I also asked for feedback for the session we just held and all participants enjoyed the activity, bringing them new perspectives on their existing skills and skill gaps.?

The second part of this activity was to identify gaps, based on the skill map we created in the workshop, and try to fill them by planning and creating a development plan for each team member. We also agreed on planning regular pair working sessions, that would benefit the product design, as well as team members in their development.

It is important to work with your UX team and define what is working well, but also what is not working so well. Some team members might feel that the goal of this activity is to monitor or micro-manage them, so it is important to explain to the team that the goal of the session is quite the opposite. Building a mature, self-aware team can be a challenge, but with the right mindset, communication skills, and tools you can achieve wonders with your smashing UX team.?

So don't be afraid, map skills in your team and get ready for the future.?It does take some preparation, but it is definitely worth it.

Photo by Alvaro Reyes on Unsplash