Guide #013: How to create a skills matrix for each role on your team

As the team learns new things — a faster way to deliver on its product or service, a better experience, or as the industry evolves — the skills matrix should be updated to reflect the team’s most up-to-date approach. Socialize your skills matrix and reinforce it regularly — host lunch and learns, for example. Invest in making sure your team is speaking the same language and has a shared understanding of what the team does.

Host a series of process workshops to document how the team delivers its product or service. Talk through the process and what it looks like end to end. Invite participants at every level of the organization involved in delivering the product or service so that you create a sense of shared ownership and accountability for the process.

Document all the roles required in delivering the product or service. For each role, determine the skills and activities that are required in delivering the product or service. Assign a RACI for each activity and determine which roles are responsible, accountable, consulted or informed for each activity required to deliver the product or service.

Using a list of all the roles involved in delivering the team’s product or service, take each role, one at a time, and document responsibilities and accountabilities for each level from junior to senior. For example, what does it look like to be an associate experience designer? What does it look like to be a principal experience designer?