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Written by Anja Thygesen
We probably all have an idea of what a good researcher is capable of doing and what kind of skills that person possesses. We also know when we provide good quality and what kind of skills we use when doing this - or do we?
Although we have a small team of researchers in our organization, I have been asked several times to benchmark, evaluate and recommend how these individuals perform and how they should grow and develop. This challenges us with defining what a good researcher is and what the career path for a good researcher should be.
To help us with this process, I decided to define the skills in a matrix and describe the company values against a number of key areas. I did not follow these steps but, after evaluating the process, it became clear to me how the process could be optimized.
Decide on the standards
The first step in the process is to discuss which parameters you want to use to evaluate your team. This is where you define one axis of your skills matrix. The aspect is highly dependent on your organization and its values. In this step you can ask a number of questions:
- What are the core values of your organization?
- Based on these values, which terms can you use to characterize good quality in your organization?
In our organization we use our 5E framework (excellence, edge, empathy, energise and entrepreneurship) in everything we do. These are the values of our entire organization and they are also operationally manageable. We used these terms to define the x-axis of the matrix to help us define what a good researcher is.
Select key skill areas
When you select the key skill areas you need to consider all the different areas in which your staff is involved. Although your team may be doing mostly research, there is still considerable work that makes daily research possible such as setting up the infrastructure, maintaining contacts, sharing knowledge and identifying relevant sources. There may also be aspects of internal marketing of your team and general participation in the life of the organization. These components may also be worth including when you list the skill areas of each position.
The areas can vary from position to position. A researcher will probably be expected to do less value-added research than a senior researcher and you may consider specifying this in your list of skills. When setting up key skill areas you may consider:
- What kind of services does your team offer?
- What are the most valued characteristics of your current services?
- Which additional skills do your customers request?
In our case, we decided to include external (request-related) and internal areas. The next step was to define what we actually do and what else we should be doing. In this process we had several team discussions about what was relevant and how our services could be segmented. This was rated against what similar research units do in other organizations, and discussed with our internal customers. The list of services defined the y-axis on our skills matrix.
Example of the frame for the skills matrix of a researcher
Decide on the current and future career path
The third step in the process is to define different career paths. Defining a skills matrix is a process of taking a step back and looking at the ideal situation with the current staff and current organization. This involves looking at possibilities and making your ideal scenario explicit.
The difficulty in this is to balance dream and reality. You may have a vision of a career path with a high degree of specialization, but is the rest of the organization ready to use a highly specialized researcher? If not, you may have to consider an alternative career path and adjust it according to the rest of your organization.
When deciding on the career path you can ask these questions:
- How do you define the current career path in your team?
- What is the strategy of the entire organization and how does your current career path match this?
- What kind of career path do you want for your staff on a 2-3 year horizon?
In our case the first version of our skills matrix was based on a three step career path: researcher to senior researcher to manager. We are still working on an additional step but realized, during the process, that the pure industry specialist position of which we were thinking is less realistic in our three year timeframe, as our organization will continue to request services from generalists with some degree of specialization and not industry specialists. However, we do see a need for an additional step in our career path, which could be a combination of an industry and knowledge specialist.
Define each field in the matrix
This is the long and difficult process wherein each of the fields is be defined and rated against the different steps in your career path. The process of filling this in takes a lot of consideration and you may find it hard to find anything to say about the different aspects of undertaking a certain task. However this does help you ensure that the final matrix is as complete as possible.
You also need to keep the different career paths in mind while filling this in. Is there a difference in what you are expecting from a more senior level in regards to the quality, communication or other aspects you have defined? This should be very clearly described in each of the relevant fields of the matrix.
You may choose to fill this in together with your team. This can be a good way of getting buy-in from your team and makes the process a creative way of discussing what services your team is delivering and what is expected. However, you should be aware that this can be time-consuming.
In our case, I had help from a colleague who is not part of our team but has a good understanding of the work we do. By discussing a first draft with her, I was able to uncover aspects that I took for given but which were not sufficiently described in the matrix. Once I had a final draft this was presented to the team at a workshop.
Decide what it takes to be promoted
The skills matrix may be used as a job description and a way of defining when a researcher is qualified to be promoted. There may be some aspects of the matrix that are more crucial than others before a promotion is possible. To ensure transparency in your career system, these should be discussed, clearly defined and communicated. An easy and visually good way to do this is to highlight the most critical skills in the matrix.
An alternative way of constructing the matrix is to merge all the aspects of quality and use the other fields in the matrix to define the steps in each position (e.g. a new researcher have these characteristics, an experienced researcher these and a researcher ready to make the next move has these characteristics). In this way, the matrix becomes a tool for positioning and promotion but loses the level of details which can be useful during an evaluation process of the individual.
An alternative model for the skills matrix
Ensure buy-in with your team and in the organization
Implementing the skills matrix and understanding the need for the tool can be difficult in some organisations. But in general it is a good idea to communicate it, as it gives your customers an idea of what to expect from an individual team member. Your team members may welcome the transparency it provides.
To ensure that this tool is used, you should make it the framework for your annual or bi-annual evaluations, use it when you discuss development plans with each of your team members and even use it when you discuss the overall priorities of the entire team. Be ready to make changes and evaluate the tool regularly to ensure that it is a picture of what each individual of your team can be expected to provide. This is the best way of keeping this tool alive and useful.
All in all, making a skills matrix is a long and time consuming process. But if you take the time and involve your team it can be a useful way of getting a clear picture of your team members' profiles, what to expect from them, and their potential career path. It also communicates to your team their main priorities and what is expected of them. If you develop and implement this skills matrix you will ensure that your team members are aware of the requirements for promotion, and you are able to communicate key deliverables to both customers and management.
About the author:
Anja Thygesen is research manager with the Danish management consulting company Quartz Strategy Consultants. She and her team of researchers provide company and market information to internal consultants as well as external clients. She has 8 years experience in business research in management consulting. Anja has formerly held positions in information research and knowledge management in A.T. Kearney. She holds master degrees in economics and in communication and is a member of AIIP. You can reach her at act@quartz.dk.
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