Skill Cards

What are Skill Cards?

Boost Personal & Professional Development with a Card Game!

This is a game built to provide structure to feedback and development conversations.

Skill Cards lives from conversation - the cards and the rules of the game are pillars on which to build a dialogue with your leader or someone from your team. The essence of the game is in aligning your view of your skills with your manager's view.

When playing it is important to remember: there is no wrong way to place the cards - every placement is a spark for a discussion and, through discussion, alignment.

Below you can find a detailed instructions.

1. Build your deck

• Skill cards are about looking at your individual skillset, not just the skills that are traditional to your role. Are you an engineer with analytics expertise, take those cards! A designer that wants to do more product management, add those cards to your deck!

• Make your deck your own. The goal is to create opportunities to discuss your individual skillset with your manager - there are no wrong answers.

• All of the available cards are grouped by function. Grab all of the stacks that you feel reflect part of your skillset and move them to frame labeled "Your Deck". This is the basis from which you will sort the cards in the next step. A set of "shared" cards are already there - these represent skills that are relevant regardless of what your role is.

• Communicate which cards you have selected with your manager. They will be sorting the same cards as you!

2. Sort

Sort your cards into the three groups:

• Non-Focus

• Good Enough

• To Improve

Have your manager do the same separately on a different board. In the next step you will compare your evaluation with theirs.

3. Compare

• Have your people manager copy and paste their sorted cards into this board. Place them beside the play-field, somewhere where you can sort them easily. Together, take the sorted cards and try to match them.

• Place all cards that match on top of your own. Did you place them differently? Put your managers cards that don't match up separately (in the respective column) to discuss.

4. Discuss & Align

• Discuss! Start with "non-focus" and move towards "to improve", focusing most on cards that you placed differently. There is no wrong way to place the cards. It may be that you are in alignment, but evaluated a different aspect of a card. Discuss and come to an agreement on what aspect of the card is relevant.

• As you agree on the correct placement, make changes! Consider using post-its to write down important points for the cards you discuss.

• When you reach "to improve", discuss each card.

5. Plan

• Consider the cards and create a priority. Reduce to the most important to create focus.

• Consider what the next steps are. Create a plan.

• Describe what aspect of each card is relevant to you and your development.

• Capture notes from your discussion.

• Describe next steps of what you can do to begin improving.

• Document! Make a plan to revisit these items in regularly.