Skills matrix software built on one shared list
Skills matrix software maps the people on your team to the skills they hold, so you can find the right person for a job. Skill lists rot when everyone types their own. PeopleMuster starts from one managed taxonomy, which fixes the spelling problem first, and that's most of the problem.
Skills are defined centrally and grouped into categories such as backend frameworks, databases and design tools.
Each skill carries a description. So two people who mean different things by the same word find that out in the list rather than on a project.
The taxonomy feeds the Skills and Expertise tab on a profile. People pick from the list instead of inventing entries.
The live taxonomy runs to 81 skills across 10 groups. Big enough to be useful, small enough that somebody can read all of it in one sitting.
A first skills list often runs to hundreds of entries, and half of them are the same thing typed twice. Pruning it into one described list is the work that makes a skills matrix readable.
The payoff shows up when somebody leaves. A profile with skills on it from a shared list is a handover document. A profile with free text on it is a puzzle.
It also shows up in the smaller moment that happens weekly. Someone needs a second opinion on a database question and doesn't know who to ask. A colleague's Skills and Expertise tab says what they know, in the shared list's words.
Descriptions are the part teams skip and then regret. Two people who both wrote React on a profile can mean very different jobs, and a one-line description in the shared list is where that gets settled once.
What it does
- Central list, described
- Every skill is defined once and carries a description, so the word means the same thing to everyone.
- Grouped in categories
- Ten categories in the live taxonomy, which keeps a long list readable.
- On the profile
- The Skills and Expertise tab draws from the taxonomy rather than from free text.
What it needs before it works
- Somebody owns the list. An unowned taxonomy grows three spellings of the same thing inside a month.
- Categories come before skills, since every skill lands in one.
- Profiles need filling in. A perfect taxonomy nobody has selected from tells you nothing.
- The skills permission separates editing the list from choosing from it.
Questions people ask
How do skills help with staffing a project?
Open the profile to see what someone knows, then the capacity grid to see when they are free. Both sit in one product, so the answer takes two screens.
How much does skills matrix software cost here?
Skills come with the $3 per person a month, alongside every other module. Annual billing is $30 per person a year, and the first 14 days are free with no card.
Who adds a new skill to the list?
Whoever holds the skills permission. Everyone else selects from the list, which is what keeps one spelling per skill.