Strategist Skills Matrix: A Skills Matrix Template Rated by Evidence

Everyone is green on strategic thinking

Picture the spreadsheet a head of strategy builds before talent reviews. Names down the side, skills across the top, each cell colored by the person's own rating. Nearly every cell in the strategic thinking column is green. The column tells her nothing, and she knows it, so she ignores the sheet and goes with her impressions, which is what the sheet was meant to replace.

What is a skills matrix for strategists? A grid of the few skills the work runs on, with each person rated on each one. It is useful only when the ratings rest on evidence: what someone has actually done, alone or with help. Rated by confidence, it fills with green. Rated by evidence, it shows whom to stretch, what to teach and what to hire for.

The tool below rates you on six skills through 18 statements, each a thing you have or have not done. You get a score per skill, an overall band and the skill to build next. Download the Excel file and you have one person's line of a team matrix.

Rated by confidence, a skills matrix fills with green. Rated by evidence, it shows you where to look.

Six skills, and why these

There is no official skills standard for strategists. The closest public reference is the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics profile of management analysts, which lists analytical, communication, interpersonal, problem-solving and time-management skills as important qualities ¹. Those are true of most professional jobs. The six below are our translation for in-house strategy work, close to the skills set out on our strategy manager role page.

The last two are where strong analysts most often struggle, as the strategy manager page argues. John Gabarro and John Kotter defined managing your boss as “the process of consciously working with your superior to obtain the best possible results for you, your boss, and the company” ²; one statement asks whether you have done exactly that. Robert Kaplan and David Norton describe a strategy office that follows up after the management meeting to make sure agreed action plans are carried out ³; another asks whether you have.

Rate by what you could show

Each statement starts with I have. That is deliberate. A rating of a skill in the abstract measures confidence; a rating of a specific thing you did measures experience, and you can be asked for the example. Use this test for each level.

From one person to a team matrix

1. Everyone takes itEach team member completes the tool and downloads the Excel file with their six skill scores.
2. The manager rates tooThe manager answers the same statements for each person, separately, before seeing their ratings.
3. Stack the scoresPaste each person's scores into one sheet as a row: people down the side, skills across the top.
4. Read the columnsA column that is low for everyone is a team gap: a training need or a hiring brief.
5. Read the rowsEach person's lowest skill is their development goal for the next six months, built into a real assignment.
6. Talk about the gapsWhere self and manager ratings differ by a level or more, ask for the example. That conversation is the point of the exercise.

Kaplan and Norton argue that a strategy office should coordinate with human resources so that hiring, training and leadership development fit the skill requirements of strategic job families ³. A team matrix is the small, practical version: it turns that requirement into named skills and named people.

What the matrix cannot tell you

The skills, levels and bands are our rubric, built from practitioner judgment, not a validated competency model. Skill is not performance: someone can rate high on all six and still choose the wrong problems. And any self-rating carries the blind spots of the person filling it in, which is why the team version asks the manager to rate too.

The strongest objection is that skills matrices reduce people to cells and get used to rank them. They often do, and then everyone learns to rate high. Keep the matrix out of pay and promotion decisions and use it for the conversation about what to learn next. If you need a view on motivation as well as skill, the skill-will matrix adds that second axis; for the thinking habits behind the craft skills, take the strategic thinking self-assessment.

Monday: one skill, one assignment

Take your lowest skill and find the next real assignment that would exercise it. Ask for that assignment, with someone who is at could teach it as reviewer. Rate yourself again in six months, by the same test: what could you show?

A matrix full of green feels good and changes nothing. A matrix with honest gaps is a plan, for one person or a whole team.

Questions

What is a skills matrix template?

A skills matrix is a grid with people down one side and skills across the top, with each cell showing a level of proficiency. A template gives you the skills and the levels. This one covers six skills for strategy work and rates them by evidence, from not yet to could teach it, so the grid shows real gaps rather than confidence.

What skills does a strategist need?

In our rubric, six: framing and problem solving, financial fluency, market and competitor analysis, writing and storyline, influence without authority, and driving decisions to a close. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics lists analytical, communication, interpersonal, problem-solving and time-management skills as important qualities for management analysts, the closest occupation it tracks.

How do I build a skills matrix for my strategy team?

Have each person complete the assessment and download their row, rate each person yourself on the same statements without seeing their answers, and stack the scores into one sheet, one row per person. Low columns are team gaps for training or hiring; each person's lowest skill becomes their development goal. Discuss any rating where you and they differ by a level or more.

Where to go next

• The Strategy Manager Role: The Work, the Skills, the Path
• Strategic Thinking Self-Assessment
• Skill-Will Matrix
• Competency Framework