CONCEPT:
The idea is to know and deepen the knowledge of the team, as well as their motivations to learn or deepen in more global knowledge to improve the whole. (https://management30.com/practice/competency-matrix/ )
In order to become aware of the team and project an evolution, as well as an internal knowledge of each person and team, we often perform the dynamics of the skills matrix but adjusted to the context.
CONTEXT:
I discovered the Competency Matrix a few years ago, and I have used it to unlock situations of low knowledge within the teams about their own skills.
Many times the day to day takes us ahead, we know that we have problems in the teams, interaction, knowledge, skills but we do nothing. The dynamic allows us to slow down and reflect on how the team is doing, what skills it has and what it needs, and how to face the future with greater certainty and certainty. It is a very important dynamic to help in cohesion but above all in the evolution towards productive and high-performance teams.
APPLICATION OF DYNAMICS:
In a first round, each person posts the list of technical knowledge they possess in post-its.
Once this first round is made, for each member of the team, the rest of the team can increase the list of knowledge of each member. If for example the team considers that John is knowledgeable about Z technology always with John's consensus that post-it is added to his list of knowledge.
In a third round, the team analyzes all the knowledge contributed by the team, looking for possible knowledge currently demanded and that does not exist in the team, to add to the list of knowledge.
We have allowed ourselves to broaden the spectrum of responses (colors) to obtain a greater depth with sentimental affinity about their interest or not in knowledge. It is an annex of ours, with free admission by the teams, as long as it gives the more value to this dynamic for the teams.
With all the resulting list of knowledge, each member of the team evaluates himself in:
- What I do not like. (Red).
- I like it and I can also work to make you feel comfortable. (green)
- I want to learn / improve. I have no knowledge or have any knowledge, but I would like to develop skills in that field. (yellow)
- I feel indifferent. I do not have passion but I will not have problems to learn about that subject if necessary. (green with +)
- I do not stand in my place. At this time, it is not among my priorities. (White)
The idea is to perform with unknown teams and with new
members in the team that they evaluate as apprentices, practitioners or
experts.
If the members of the team have worked with each other before, or have been working together for a while, the idea is to expand their knowledge in depth with the scale listed above.
In this way, when a new need arises in the area, it is quickly known that people are more favorable to this type of initiative, such as preparing future training plans, such as helping people establish a path of continuous improvement in the area. , look for your own purpose in the company. Identify what problems exist and create contingency plans to alleviate these problems.
It is a step 0 to create a complete Kaizen area. It always works, and it is considered something so obvious that it is rarely done, providing much information and value to the team.
ADVANTAGES OF DYNAMICS:
The main advantage of the dynamic is that it allows us to generate very powerful conversations about how we should improve as a team and what we can do first individually to achieve it. Many times we do not have time, but we are aware that there are problems in the equipment. In this way we can show the current state of a team and design plans and contingencies for unforeseen events in the future in a collaborative way.
DISADVANTAGES OF DYNAMICS:
the dynamic can be dangerous if expectations have not been set beforehand and that they are realistic. If we have not contacted their managers, the talent area, etc. previously, we can generate a false expectation that is not met and only generates frustration. If, for example, after carrying out the dynamic, there is a lack of knowledge in X areas that need extra training, with support from the organization and that is not possible, we will only make the team climate worse.
CONCLUSION:
All the team members get to know each other by creating stronger informal relationships to help each other acquire more knowledge, create mentoring programs, continuous improvement programs (kaizen).
It allows them to have a global vision to get ahead in knowledge based on the annual roadmap of projects, skills and knowledge demanded. It allows them to see a global map of their knowledge and their weaknesses to work as a team in a future.
In contexts where collaboration is recognized or rewarded, or that incentive is starting, joint work, employee growth culture, this dynamic not only helps managers, leaders and teams, it has helped me with HR managers to change its internal career policies and plans, even to carry out a sponsored top-down transformation.
On the contrary, in contexts with strong competition, time pressures, etc., I cannot say that it has been a disaster, because you always have to think positive, and thinking positive there are always lessons, or possible levers of transformation in the future, then I list these situations:
In contexts where specialization is rewarded against
generalization, dynamics can only be valid for managers, as a starting photo to
identify gaps, in my experience.
This dynamic has never worked for me in situations where the
company does not accompany the development of skills, training plans.
In that situation, I try, if possible, and one is empowered to reach rrhh to discuss the skill matrix with them, to generate a sense of concern or need.
The same thing happens depending on your level of urgency are receptive or not.
I my opinion, iIn teams or areas with strong competition or specialization, focused on objectives has not worked very well. In some cases by their own competence, in others as I have commented before because "we don't have time to train", "we don't have internal training".
What is true, and has always "germinated" even at the team level, team leader, leader, manager or simply an empowered team member, is to obtain a starting photo of the real problems of the area, or team to deal with to the management of your work or demand.
My conclusión is some frustration can be generated if there are no levers that help to evolve those skills in case they are needed or people want to generate them. But it is a great starting point to identify these levers, try to help empower that group and generate groups in the company with the same need to improve knowledge. The sum of all improves the set and generates leverage.
It was possible to pull in the human resources program to develop skills in terms of machine learning, front development, to expand the team of 8 people from 2 to 4 people with knowledge of both skills, increasing the autonomy of the team and the minimum dependencies of external teams in terms of functionality development. Increasing the satisfaction and happiness of team members by raising their karma from 3 to 4 and the loyalty of talent in the company.
MY LEARNING:
My
first learning and continuous improvement is in the explanation of the
dynamics, about the purpose so that each one knows each other better and
above all that they know each other about the skills they have as a
team, how to improve and amplify them. The degree of improvement as a
facilitator here has been enormous in the pedagogical plane of learning
the dynamics, explanation and landing for them.
I have learned based
on their feelings, initially of doubt or fear sometimes when showing
whether or not they know about a topic and when I deepen according to
the degree of knowledge and rapport of the teams themselves: "Are you
willing to learn more about this topic? ?" "Why don't you consider
yourself good at something that the rest of the team perceives as such?"
"What prevents you from delving into this topic?". It has helped me
improve my coaching skills with teams, to be a better servant leader, to
create psychologically safe contexts with teams. The people who carry
out the dynamic go from initial feelings of doubt, fear or rejection on
some occasions to a final feeling of involvement, rapport, generating a
shared purpose with a common goal: "how can I contribute better to the
team now ". In an organization that I cannot name, the dynamic allowed,
together with the person in charge of the area, to create an annual
training plan linked to the growth plan of each person, known to all and
of which everyone was aware, knowing how A can contribute to the
professional development of B, B to the development of C and C to the
development of A. That team after a year was a high performance team
working on an inspiring product for the company and society and the
dynamics expanded to the rest of the products in the area. Only one
person from that team has left in this time.
NEXT STEPS:
In my experience, I take the next steps at the level of even managers or talent areas to make them participate and aware of how the team or area of the skills matrix has to evolve. Sometimes with internal or external training plans, with changes in incentive policies, with existing artifacts in the organization or with internal career plans that require support. It is a trigger for improvement, evolution and monitoring of the growth of people.
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