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Inconsistent Skill Notation

Bottom-up skill entry tends to lead to inconsistent notation. To mitigate this, Zipteam provides two flows.

  1. When adding skills in free-form, if similar skills already exist in the workspace, predictive skills will be displayed. It’s best to make it a practice to select from these suggestions.
  2. If you want to conduct a top-down skill survey, you can use Self Review. Since reviewees can answer with multiple-choice skills, notation inconsistencies won’t occur.

Note: It is crucial that leaders and managers do not spend too much time creating forms for option 2. (Ref. Unsure what to include in the skill template )

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Tips for skill name

Here are few tips for entering your skill name:

  • Avoid using acronyms that are not publicly well-known.
    • 🚫 PE
    • 👍 Plant engineering
  • Avoid using phrase like “how to”, “ways to” or any other phrases with prepositions. Try to find a well-known term.
    • 🚫 How to increase SNS followers
    • 👍 Social media marketing
  • Avoid using symbols like ().
    • 🚫 IP (Intellectual Property)
    • 👍 Intellectual property

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Overcomplicated Skills Graph

This tends to happen when trying to add everything like certifications and detailed versioning of technical components to Skills Graph or templates for self-review. While Zipteam allows registration of up to 30 skills per user by default (100 for Starter and Enterprise plans), if you’re trying to register more than 20 skills, it’s probably a good time to consider pruning your skills. Any more than that significantly reduces the visibility of the skills graph. (Please remember the skills graph should be designed to be human-readable!)

Please refer to the following guidelines:

  1. Keep skills as simple nouns. (avoid specific versions, scores, etc…)
  2. For versioning, certification grades, and scores where important, keep only the most recent ones

NOTE: When you know multiple versions of standards, this should be expressed Experience in each skill nodes.

  1. When registering more than 20 skills, try breaking them down into smaller islands instead of creating one large skill graph island

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Unsure what to include in the skill template

This is a common issue that occurs when managers try to create skill templates. However, let’s not lose sight of the goal. The manager’s role is to collect currently identifiable skills while minimizing notation inconsistencies. The purpose is not to tackle “known unknowns.” What managers don’t know is what their colleagues know. By iterating through self reporting and template-based self-reviews, and keeping the data up-to-date, the optimal skill template will become apparent.

We have predefined skill templates that can be imported into Zipteam. Please contact support@zipteam.com for more information.

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Directions for Creating Skill Templates

  1. Brainstorm skills and terms that could be key to organizational strategy

  2. Create a prototype skill template

  3. Explore frameworks where these skills exist, without limiting itself to your organization’s business domain

    Tips: If you cannot find an appropriate framework, you should not spend any more time searching for one. You should keep the skill names from step 1 in your framework and refer to the skills of employees who respond to it.)

  4. Try applying the frameworks you found to the following patterns

    1. The framework can be expressed as three-layered structured data consisting of category, skill, and description (even if there are more than 3 layers of subcategories, they can be simplified)

      This type is common in fields centered around established skills like IT, where skill assessments and certifications are well-established

    2. Skills have multiple actions (e.g. Competency model)

      Sales, industry-specific engineering, and other job-focused fields that often lack established assessment frameworks, and are frequently characterized by soft skills

  5. In both cases, adopt the categories and skills into your framework. However, particularly in case b, take measures to complement the action part through Peer Review.

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Unable to properly define the scope of skills

When conducting Peer Reviews or considering Team Requirements, you’ll need to think about the scope of skills. However, thinking of these as separate things might be incorrect. Both are framed by a common strategy at the highest level, and the Team planning and reflection contained within form a single cyclical workflow. The Required skills planned for a Team and the skills reviewed in Peer Review should be almost identical.

(If you find it difficult to define the initial skill set for the cycle, why not try looking for it in your organization’s Skill template?)