One of the best ways to support my team as their lead is by making sure we’re each individually growing in the right direction, and a team we can learn from. To do that, I need to know where they currently stand—what they’re great at, where they need to level up, what they’re interested in, and when grouped together, what skills we’re missing altogether as a team. That’s where a skills-mapping survey comes in.
Implementing this super useful method helped me plan our bi-weekly craft hour topics, spot learning opportunities, and figure out what gaps we should fill when hiring.
How to set up the survey
Google Forms would work for this, but I actually just created a spreadsheet for each member of my team to fill out. It’s certainly less daunting than rating 40 skills on 5-point scale twice.
| Skill | Experience (1-5) | Interest (1-5) |
| Interaction design | ||
| Data visualization |
Determine the skills your team needs
What do you want your team to be good at? How does a designer at your company need to show up to create positive impact? It’ll be different depending on the resources and support they’ll have to get their jobs done.
For example, a startup without individual contributors in research and data analysis could lead you to include some of those skills as a way a designer can grow, since they’ll need to conduct their own investigations.
I used the following categories and skills:
Research and analysis
Qualitative analysis
Quantitative analysis
Competitive analysis
Working in spreadsheets
A/B testing
Heuristic evaluations
Surveys
Participant recruitment
Card sorting
Usability testing
Diary studies
Interviews
Communication
Proofreading
Content strategy
Giving feedback
Public speaking & presenting
Writing requirements
Data visualization
Note taking
Design
Wireframing
Information architecture
Interaction design
Colour theory
Graphic design
Typography
Vector illustration
Raster image editing & art
Web animation & motion design
Alignment
Workshop facilitation
Job stories
Flow charts
Journey maps
Service blueprints
Personas
Development
Testing % QA
Acccessibility
HTML & CSS
Javascript
Prototyping with code or AI
Use a simple rating scale to evaluate proficiency and interest
For each skill, the team rated themselves from 1 to 5:
- Never touched it
- Dabbled a bit
- Comfortable
- Experienced
- Expert, could teach it
Getting 5s is fantastic, because that helps you identify people within your team who you can work with to provide learning material and workshops to level up the rest.
Finally, in the third column, they rate their level of interest:
- Very uninterested
- Uninterested
- Neutral
- Interested
- Very interested
It’s helpful to see not just what people can do, but what they want to do. Someone might be a beginner at motion design but super eager to learn more.
Making sense of the results
Once everyone fills it out, there’s individual and team analysis to do.
Individual analysis
Compare experience with interest. It’s helpful to see not just what people can do, but what they want to do. Someone might be a beginner at motion design but super eager to learn more.
| Skill | Experience | Interest | Difference |
| Interaction design | 4 | 4 | 0 |
| Data visualization | 1 | 2 | 1 |
If your team has a few key skills with low experience + high interest, these are great topics for training. I ran a “Craft hour” meetup once every two weeks, where I or someone on my team would prepare something for everyone to learn.
Team analysis
Add up the number of people who evaluated themselves at each experience level to understand the makeup of your team. In the example above, 4 people rated themselves a 1 for web animation, but we’re fortunate enough to have a 5 who can help teach the team.
Turning Insights Into Action
After gathering the data, here’s what I do:
- Craft hour planning: Pick topics that match what people want to learn. People who rank as 5s can volunteer to teach, which also helps improve skills like Presentation and Workshop facilitation.
- Mentorship matching: Pair up teammates who can learn from each other.
- Hiring strategy: Prioritize skills we don’t have when reviewing candidates. This can mean looking out for different items in case studies, or adjusting whiteboard activities and interview questions.
- Personal development: Use this in 1:1s to help folks set growth goals. Projects ebb and flow, so I work with my team to identify impactful side projects that could also be an opportunity to practise a skill
Final thoughts
This isn’t a one-and-done thing. Running the survey every year (after performance reviews to keep these evaluations separate) helps track progress and keep training relevant. More importantly, it builds a culture where learning and skill-sharing are part of how the team works.
By regularly checking in on our team’s skills, we make sure we’re growing in the right ways—both as individuals and as a team.