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Competency Matrix

This is one area that many companies or industries may want to customize a bit further than others, and in my research the terms used for very similar ideas can vary quite wildly. I’ve done my best to capture a wide group of options and will list them below, grouped by two larger categories: hard skills and soft skills.

Hard Skills

These are typically related to the technical know-how / knowledge that’s required to do your job and excel at it. For designers in the UX, UI, or Product space, they are skills like...

Tools & Processes

Product / Design Thinking

Craft & Quality (Visual / UI Design)

Research Methodology

Operations / Design Ops

Strategy & Planning

Delivery & Presentation

Business Knowledge

Effectiveness

Soft Skills

These are associated with personality traits and how we exhibit them. Design is a collaborative effort, so these grease the gears between business, product, & users. They’re made up of...

Communication

Transparency

Leadership

Culture & Community

Recruiting / Mentoring & Coaching

Influence & Trust-building

Collaboration

Empathy

Independence

Your matrix can vary based on how complicated you want to make it or how visual your team is when it comes to making, updating, and sharing this with each other. Some orgs use nothing more than a table, others have Figma templates... there’s no right or wrong, as long as it’s clear and useful to your career discussions.

n the section below, I’ll focus on what we did at my last job so you can learn from our mistakes, adjustments, and attempts at growth/change.

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Matrix Building (an example)

At Blizzard, our design org’s competency matrix was made up of 4 large categories, each with 2 sub-items to provide clarity and context for our folks. They looked like this...

Communication

Connections → Interpersonal items related to presenting & critiques

Collaboration → Cross-team items like bridging gaps and being a force multiplier

Craft

Knowledge → Understanding of design workflows and our product space

Execution → Ability to do the work, be self-sufficient, and create documentation

Design Thinking

Critical Thinking → Solving problems in the space, good introspection abilities

Strategy → Ability to see the BIG Picture, connect the dots, and plan the next move

Influence

Leadership → Inspire and mentor your folks, exhibit foresight abilities

Trust-Building → Display empathy, use persuasive pitches, and manage relationships

The visualization of this was done in Figma with a graphic and a rating system that was disconnected from our job titles, instead using Novice, Intermediate, Advanced, and Mastery.

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Based on managing several people during my time there, I think this leveling system was flawed (and one I was correcting before the layoffs hit)... why? Because it leads to confusion about role requirements and creates conflict between your people’s level of skill (as they perceive it) and how the org values it. With some adjustments, that tension and some tense conversations could have been avoided.

As an example: one of my folks come to us after completing their masters degree where they did internships at very well-known and respected companies... they may have been “early” in their career but were not a Novice by any stretch of the imagination. When doing their self-evaluation and filling out our competency matrix for the first time, they unknowingly rated themselves somewhere around a Senior designer, while holding the title of Associate.

My discussions with them were careful as I explained if they start their career so far into skill ratings, they will plateau sooner than others and risk getting stuck. Justifying the growth from Advanced to Mastery is much harder to prove in yearly performance reviews when you’re juggling mid-career workloads than it is to go from something like Novice to Intermediate. Over-rating yourself now can stunt your career later.

This lead to them (and most people) knowing they’re talented, feeling like they could or should be a certain rating on the graphic, but having to second-guess and down-rate themselves in order to play into the long-con of a 40+ year career in the field. It sucks, feels bad, and makes you resent these discussions and avoid doing this type of work.

Hence, my push to rework them!

Pairing Proficiency Scales with Job Titles

The competency scale I was remaking paired closer to industry terms, and moved to having 5 levels instead of 4, which is a better match to our traditional industry job-titles, as well...

Proficiency Scale

Aware → basic knowledge

Novice → limited experience

Intermediate → practical application

Advanced → applied theory

Expert → recognized authority

Job Titles / Levels

Associate Designer

Mid-career Designer

Senior Designer

Principal -or- Lead / Manger

Distinguished -or- Director / VP

By creating this 1:1 comparison of skill proficiency to job titles, it allows folks to still do a proper self-evaluation without as much lying involved. Sure, I may feel like an intermediate at some particular skill, but when comparing myself to colleagues that are more senior than myself, do I see things I could still learn or do better? If so, maybe that kicks off an adjustment to my self-evaluation.

Or, maybe they do this one thing better but I do another thing better! Jotting that down can help find those gaps and inconsistencies the org may not already be aware of. If that’s the case, it means you’re more ready for that discussion with your manager and have examples to justify the growth in your skillset and ratings.

The Bureaucracy / Politics at Work

There is often hesitancy from the company or HR to pair these two things (skills and levels) because it makes it difficult to keep people at a lower title or pay as they grow over the course of their career.

It’s to their advantage to pay you less for good work and keep someone on their staff who doesn’t realize they could get paid (and titled) much more fairly elsewhere. But since I’m not writing this for a particular company or organization, I will say this next part out-loud and in a big green box...

If you feel under-valued at work but bosses are gaslighting you into seeing why longer tenured but less skilled folks deserve the promotion, pay bump, or other award that you were fighting for?... start your job-search immediately!

They showed their true colors, will not change, & someone else will pay what you’re worth.

Too many good designers and awesome folks feel a one-sided loyalty to company’s that assign them a number, do not value their work-life balance, and would lay them off without a second-thought if it made their books balance a little bit better. You have to look out for yourself because no one else will.

Your boss might be your mentor, coach, even a friend... but when it comes to business decisions, they cannot protect you from a random HR or executive decision. That’s just not how capitalism works.

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