You've seen them. Those giant competency spreadsheets that map skills against job levels. They take ages to create, and then sit there for years because no one has time to revise them. You read them once when you're hired, and then you never read them again. Your manager might bust it out once or twice a year to review where you're at, but most of the time you ignore it.
We were there. We wanted a better way to have these conversations. In 2019 I led the effort to develop a new competency framework for our Product Design team. We wanted something concise, that could be easily updated, and easy to use.
I conducted interviews with our design team leaders and researched other competency frameworks for large design teams at other companies. I then synthesized all of it into seven competencies for designers to focus on, and a bit of guidance for how to self-assess against them. All of these summed up in a simple two-page artifact. No more big, complicated spreadsheets.
Every company is different, but I believe this would make a great start for any new design team.
