Kyiv Quality Assurance Day 2021 РАМЕЛЛА БАСЕНКО «9-box skills assessment technique and it’s role in QA team composition» Слідкуйте за нами: Телеграм: t.me/goqameetup Linkedin: linkedin.com/company/goqa Fb: https://www.facebook.com/goqaevent Fb: https://www.facebook.com/qaday.org Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOyIrmpVbtqUZyRLxd9BKzA

1. 9-Box skills assessment
technique and its role in QA
team composition
...or why teams leads are also responsible for career development

2. About Speaker
Speaker: Ramella Basenko
Role: Lead QA Engineer at AgileEngine, ISTQB
certified Tester Full Advanced Level
7+ years of experience in QA area, 5 years of QA team
management experience.

3. Agenda
1. QA team Leader duties and responsibilities
2. Team leader's exceptional role in QAs career development
3. 9-Box skills assessment matrix in talent management
4. How to build 9-Box matrix for your team and apply in an effective way

4. QA team Leader duties and responsibilities
Building an effective team is like preparing a gourmet meal. While it is critical to start with the right
people or ingredients, it is also mandatory to put them together in the correct way. This is a fact
that a team cannot thrive without its members all having the roles and responsibilities that suits
them the best.
QA Lead – a person responsible for the quality of the project as a whole and the people who work
under his leadership.

5. QA team Leader duties and responsibilities

6. Team Leader’s exceptional role in QAs career development
QA team lead heads the team of testers and is
also responsible for:
● the project’s realization within pre-estimated
time and control of its compliance with
technical requirements;
● planning in the process of working on a
project;
● microclimate inside a team;
● performance of each individual team member;
● development and professional growth of each team member;
● the motivation of employees.

7. Team Leader’s exceptional role in QAs career development
An effective team leader inspires and motivates the
staff and guides them to meet the company's
targets. If the leader does not communicate the vision
to the team clearly or offer encouragement, the
company may suffer.
Team Lead is the leader of a team who possesses
technical skills and ensures the professional and career
growth of his employees.

8. 9-Box skills assessment matrix in talent management
What is 9-Box skills assessment matrix?
A '9-box grid' is a matrix tool that is used to evaluate and plot a company's talent pool based
on two factors, which most commonly are performance and potential. Typically on the horizontal
axis is 'performance' measured by performance reviews. On the vertical axis is ‘potential’ referring
to an individual’s potential to grow one or more levels in a managerial or professional capacity.
The 9-Box matrix was originally created in the 1970’s by the management consulting company
McKinsey. They created the assessment to help GE(General Electrics) prioritize investments they
were making across all of their business units. However, the 9-Box worked slightly differently when
evaluating business units. On one axis they evaluated industry attractiveness and on the other the
competitive strength.
Nine-box grids are actively used during the talent review process. During this process, a group of
managers works together to place individuals on the X-Y axis to help to identify who are the highest
potential individuals, who needs development, and who needs coaching on performance
improvement.”

9. 9-Box skills assessment matrix in talent management
The 9-box grid is an individual assessment tool that
evaluates an employee's current and potential level
of contribution to the organization. The vertical
columns of the grid indicate growth potential, and the
horizontal rows identify whether the employee is
currently below, meeting or exceeding performance
expectations. The intersection of the two determines
the employee's current standing and where
development may be needed.
The 9-box grid is most commonly used in succession
planning as a method of evaluating an organization's
current talent and identifying potential leaders. When
leadership performance and potential are assessed
and plotted on the graph, individuals in the upper
right quadrant (Box 1) are identified as high-potential
candidates for succession, while those in the lower
left quadrant (Box 9) may need to be reassigned or
removed from the organization.

10. 9-Box skills assessment matrix in talent management
The boxes on the grid indicate
where investment needs to be
made to develop future leaders.
Those people in box 1 should be
ready for top leadership within 6
months to a year; those in boxes
2, 3, or 6 have a longer timeline
but can be groomed for eventual
movement to box 1.

11. How to build 9-Box matrix for your team and apply in an
effective way
After the manager has identified the performance and
behaviors of their employees on the Performance
Values Matrix, other managers and leaders can now
use this data to help them make decisions about the
potential of particular employees, especially when it
comes to leadership succession planning.
This doesn’t mean that the team leader finds the
replacements for himself, but it helps to avoid bus factor
and promotes high-quality task delegation.

12. How to build 9-Box matrix for your team and apply in an
effective way
Sources of details on team members to build 9-Box matrix:
1. Survey
2. Рairwise comparison
3. Сompetency interviews
4. 360 degrees analysis
** Sometimes it is enough to have evaluation meetings (eg. performance review meetings ) notes to
make decisions and put team members to appropriate cells of 9-Box grid

13. How to build 9-Box matrix for your team and apply in an
effective way
After getting more details we need to put team
members to appropriate positions and add
comments as an additional information.
For example people from cell ‘High
Potential/Outstanding performance could
possible play role of number two of a team lead
in case of urgency or they could be delegated
with more difficult tasks (process and
documentation related tasks)
People from cell High Potential/Effective
performance are also valuable team members,
but they still have lack of skills/experience to
become a leader, but they are on the way to it.
‘Medium Potential/Effective performance’ -
people who have a corridor to grow and
currently show good results

14. How to build 9-Box matrix for your team and apply in an
effective way
What are the benefits of a picture shown in 9-Box grid?
- the tool used for succession planning, it’s a best practice to identify and develop tomorrow’s
leaders, today.
- help your team address the specific challenges and situations they face right now to create
clear, actionable priorities and next steps for each team member
- help support, clarify, and focus on leadership and succession planning goals.

15. References
1. The 9 Box Grid: A Practitioner’s Guide - article
2. Succession planning: what is a 9-box grid? - article
3. Managing the Test People: A Guide to Practical Technical
Management - book
4. The Holloway Guide to Technical Recruiting and Hiring: Align
your team to avoid expensive hiring mistakes - book
5. Using the Performance Values Matrix Alongside a 9-Box Grid -
article

16. Q&A

17. Thanks for your
attention!