The goal
The goal is to improve team performance by developing the new and existing capabilities that let your business processes run at their best. In discovery, you gather skills in plain language. They'll become polished competencies later.
You can start by asking leaders, "What skills do your team members need?" But leaders often need help thinking about skills more critically. You may need to explain a bit of the method to put them in the right frame of mind.
Questions to ask leaders
- What roles exist in your department?
- What skills do your team members need to excel at their jobs today?
- What skills are holding back great but lower-performing members of your team?
- What do KPIs look like if your business processes are running at their best?
- If that KPI could improve by 50% in the next six months, what capabilities would have made it happen?
- Which of your KPIs is the hardest for you? What team capabilities could move it the right way?
- What skills take the most effort, or cause the most trouble, when onboarding new team members?
- What skills, if your people had them someday, could take your department or organization to the next level?
- What skills would help your department line up better with the organization's strategy?
Where to look for skills
Mention a few of these to trigger ideas:
- Tools and technology people use in their jobs
- Industry patterns and practices
- Soft skills and mindsets that improve performance
- Needs from other departments (for example, Finance needs everyone to file expense reports properly)
- Organizational or regional culture
- Comparing high and low performers
- Development plans and performance review criteria
- Books leaders have read that show how they want to operate
Other places in your own files
- Surveys about which professional skills matter, for employees and leaders
- Existing learning materials and your current learning system
- Job descriptions and job postings
- Individual development plans
- Performance review criteria
- Recent informal training: slide decks, recordings of lunch-and-learns, memos about process changes, "grassroots" training attempts
- Examples of your high performers, compared with others, to find aspirational skills
Write skills down in draft, plain-English form. Don't spend time perfecting the wording yet. Then meet with champions and stakeholders until they agree the list represents what the organization needs.
Investigate each skill
Once you've found a skill, dig in. Capture at least the following, and use the questions to guide you.
Audience
Who should gain this skill?
- What role or category of team member needs it?
- Do other people need parts of it to help this audience succeed?
Value
What does it matter?
- What's at stake?
- What would it cost the organization not to have this skill?
Alignment
How does it connect to the strategy? (Core, cross-functional, or functional.)
- Does it help everyday jobs and the bigger picture or cultural shift we're after?
- Is it task-related, or more about attitudes and basic behaviors?
- Does every employee need it?
Level
What level of mastery does this department need?
- What level is required to do an outstanding job: beginner, intermediate or advanced?
- Do some parts of it belong only to top performers?
Difficulty
How hard is it to gain?
- How difficult is it to learn?
- How long does it take the average person to become proficient?
Expertise
Who already has it?
- Does anyone in the organization have it?
- If you had to choose a mentor, who would it be?
Acquisition
How do people learn it?
- How do people typically learn it? What's the best way? What are some alternatives?
- How did your highest performers learn it?
Observability
How can you see it?
- How do we know someone has this skill?
- How do we usually see it in action? How do we know someone is doing well?
- Are there metrics that show it at its best?
Transferability
Does it matter elsewhere?
- Could it be valuable in other companies or departments?
- Could it strengthen someone's resume or LinkedIn profile?
Resistance
What gets in the way?
- What might stop people from learning it?
- What might make it hard to keep once gained?
- Why do people usually stop trying to master it?
Prerequisites
What does it depend on?
- What should be learned first?
- What stepping stone do people usually take before this?
Next steps
What comes after?
- What often comes next after mastering this?
- Where do masters of this skill usually go next?