Skillmap for designers

At Trevolution Group (part of Dyninno Group ), we've developed a unique designer skillmap that categorizes skills and competencies into an engaging hierarchy, ranging from the foundational knowledge of an 'Apprentice' to the expert teachings of a 'God'. This skillmap helps designers understand where they stand and how they can enhance their design prowess. And you can also take a quick test to see where you land!

In response to negative feedback about our calorie counter feature on the App Store and Google Play, we sought to identify and address the issue within this aspect of the product.

In short, it's about effective leadership. When I joined Trevolution, I needed a clearer understanding of designers' ratings, grades, and development plans. To help the team grow, it's crucial to understand their strengths and weaknesses. That’s where the skillmap comes in.

First and foremost, skillmapping is about developing our main resource - our designers. Defining their current status is the first step in helping them grow, develop, and reach their goals. Achieving our professional goals brings the endorphin rush of a job well done and keeps us moving forward. Without clear goals, frustration and stagnation can set in. Growth, even slow growth, is essential.

After we have mapped out the skill set of our designers, we look at our team and decide what we can require from Seniors, Middlers, and Juniors. We can require God level from seniors, Ninja from middlers, Explorer from juniors, and Apprentice from interns.

As with anything, there is gradation to gradation. For product designers, we typically require Explorer-level skills in Photoshop. However, if someone has God-level expertise, that's a bonus but not necessary for the role. In the same vein, we don't require any Photoshop skills from our interns.

There are lots of great tools for creating competency maps, but since they're pretty expensive and we already use Notion, we decided to stick with it. Each designer already had their own Notion page with their 1-to-1s, useful links, and agreements with the lead.

It's time to add their competency cards. Notion has synced blocks that help us sync grade descriptions and databases that can be connected to pages. As a result, each designer's page has a smart table of their skills.

The only thing stopping us was the lack of charts in Notion. We wanted to compare designers to each other and get an overview of what was going on. Thanks to ChatGPT, I quickly wrote a script to export the Notion database to Google Sheets and make charts there.

We also made a graph to look at the overall situation. These are our expectations from the designers in the company.

The script is now on the server and runs every day via Cron. Plus, you can integrate everything from Google back into Notion. So, the designer's page now looks like this. Blue is the designer's skills and red is our requirements for that grade.

We review our designers every six months and set new goals based on the results. New designers are evaluated after their probation period.

Creating this skillmap was a complex process that took all summer, involving multiple revisions to quell any internal doubts. Thanks to Roberts Kaplans and Annet Akopyan for their contributions! If you're interested in our detailed skill descriptions, we've made the Skillmap available here for free use.