Building a Skills Matrix for all HfLA Program Areas

[kcoronel]

Overview

Bonnie joined our CTJ All Teams Meeting on 4/11, and shared with the team her reasons for why our MVP will need to include a Skills Matrix that allows job posters to list the skills their project is in need of and for job seekers to self-select their skills and their experience within each skill.

We need to create a Skills Matrix for each of HfLA's programatic areas.

Action Items

• Setup Items
  • set-up Skills Matrix spreadsheet with each program area as a new sheet
  • create folder for documents related to this issue
  • add folder URL under resources
    - [ ] Bonnie to move Skills Matrix spreadsheet to folder in CTJ drive
  • create a list of all the Matrix that will need to be created and their timeline for completion
• Once a Skills Matrix is complete
  • create a new issue for the completed Skills Matrix that includes the following tasks:
  • research team will reach out to respective CoP and ask to be included in the agenda to review the Skills Matrix with CoP
  • an alternative to the above may be taken, with Bonnie providing names of volunteers that the Research team

Workflows and Timeline:

• Create a Skills Matrix for Design
• Create a Skills Matrix for Research
• Create a Skills Matrix for Engineering
  - Bonnie will request this from the Engineering Community of Practice
  - Timeline: End of April
• Create a Skills Matrix for Data
  - Bonnie will request this from the Data Science Community of Practice
  - Timeline: Early May
• Create a Skills Matrix for PM (Project and Product)
  - Karen to add to the Product Management Community of Practice agenda for 4/14)
  - Timeline: End of April
• Create a Skills Matrix for Dev Ops
  - Bonnie will ask them (but may take some time, because they have another task to complete)
  - Timeline: TBD

---

For Future iterations (this is now captured in issue #568)

• Create a Skills Matrix for Community Management (we call it admin but we should move to calling it Community Management which is industry standard)
  - TBD
• Create a Skills Matrix for Content
  - CTJ Research team to talk to UI/UX Community of Practice about developing this
  - Timeline: TBD
• Create a Skills Matrix for SEO/Marketing
  - Bonnie may have something to get us started on this
  - Timeline: TBD
• Create a Skills Matrix for Fundraising
  - Bonnie will ask Chelsea if she can begin working on this
  - Timeline: End of May

Resources/Instructions

• CoP link to leads
• List of HfLA Projects - look only at active projects
• Skills Matrix folder
• HfLA Skills and Experience Matrix
• [Epic] Research for Skills Matrix Content Audit  #567 Issue for Research on Skills Matrix content

[kcoronel]

Notes from conversation with Bonnie 10/11/ 23.
Attendees: Nga, Karen, Bonnie

Skills Matrix is being used in other parts of HackforLA so no, we are not open to exploring this. Currently it is being used to build it into People Depot (this project is building an application/dashboard that will help manage all volunteers), project team working on Label dashboard (part of Hack for LA website team), and the Internship program has used it already to review interns skills before and after internship with Hack for LA.

Current landscape of workforce development organizations who do skills acquisition (not exhaustive list but this is what Bonnie spoke about)

Organizations who do skills acquisition, most common in CA is Workforce Development Centers, basically they get paid by government (specifically government uses a percentage of unemployment tax workers pay into). Folks who are unemployed can get service from one of these centers. Some services include resume help, job training, and placement. Most of these jobs are low income/low training (i.e. bank teller). Bonnie dropped into a center about 8-9 years ago and this one place (all are different), they had a connection at Sony and if you were in the tech industry they would see if there were any openings there.

Another organization is bootcamps. Depending on their philosophy bootcamps train you but not all will guarantee job placement or they will train you and you don't pay until you get a job.

How Hack for LA is different and how skills matrix can help quantify our work to funders

HackforLa is totally different from both of these organization. We take everybody - folks who are on Visa's to folks who are right to work in US, there are no barriers to entry (only onboarding - need internet access and be able to manage tools used during onboarding). In our organization folks can volunteer on projects and put their experience on their resume. From Bonnie "HackforLA is the only place you can get real work experience. Work on projects in an enterprise environment, get interdisciplinary team experience, and learn how to manage stakeholders. Bonnie wants to be able to quantify the aforementioned work of HackforLA for funders.

CTJ will be able to quantify this by giving users an opportunity to complete their skill matrix at the beginning of their HackforLA journey and then when they exit a project or organization, providing the user with an exit survey that contains the same skill matrix for them to complete - hopefully showcasing the skills they were able to develop over time at Hack for LA. This is how the organization can get paid from government/private funds.

How the skills matrix fits into other Hack for LA organizational goals (and why we have to use the current iteration of it)

Currently, the Hack for LA website team which is different from other project teams , because it takes devs from bootcamps/ novice experience and trains them to be better prepared to join other Hack for LA projects. This team is working on building a glossary of labels that will be able to sort issues within projects by skill. This way when a user joins a project team, they can choose to filter for the labels with the particular skill they are hoping to develop. Example: A PM wants to work on a roadmap, if they find a project with a label that says skill: roadmap, this PM will be able to work on that issue and once they close it this will closed issue will show up in their dashboard (part of label project) and can be utilized to prove skill improvement/development. The Dashboard is 6-8 months away from being developed.

Things we need to build into product

If certain skill is not currently listed in matrix, there will need to be a way for project leads to let us know about a skill we need to add to the matrix

What does Bonnie hope to see/get from CTJ in the future (post MVP 1)

Folks come to CTJ complete their skills matrix, there are no open roles that match this users skill matrix, CTJ will let them know that there are no open roles, but ask if we can stay in contact. This ideally happens before orientation, so people don't have to join orientation if there are no open roles for them.

Users are able to see where opportunities for work are, and be able to move around to teams with needed skills they are seeking to grow in.

Users get a copy of their user journey- starts showing up on their dashboard + issues hold premade resume bullets that user can use when they close the issue. This is a few years out for the organization.

User will be able to update their own skills matrix when they are done with a team. And/or CTJ product can learn from the backend when an issue has been closed, add this learned skill to user profile and be able to identify them for roles. Example: Project team is looking for experienced researcher with experience interviewing people. When Bob joined the org he did not have this experience, however he joined team, developed this skill, and the CTJ app notified him for an open project role that requires a researcher with interviewing skills/experience.

Potential CTJ phases

Skills matrix matches to labels in GitHub so users can see their progress helping to verify experience + this can help with folks request for visa application/volunteer letter

Skills matrix to labels to building your resume (using AI)

Other organization projects connected to CTJ

People depot - database for entire organization - people information, project information, etc. People depot will be one backend we (CTJ) pull from. User enters their info to VRMS, deliver to people depot and people depot (through API) will deliver to website team, CTJ, etc.

[kcoronel]

Will chat with Lu and Manju about taking this issue after they have completed the usability testing.

[kcoronel]

• We added an agenda item re: Skills Matrix to the DevOps meeting agenda on 4/10
• Kanika messaged Data Science community re: Skills Matrix

[kcoronel]

Suggestions from Bonnie:

• Kanika and Karen to look at the PM Wiki and see if anything is missing.
• Perhaps poll Products people.
• Have an idea for defining if/when done

From conversation --
Be more granular with the Skills we use in the Matrix
Bonnie made updates to Product and Design/Research Matrix

For usability testing:

• check off all the boxes of what you need for the role you have listed (they may say, there is something that wasn't on here
  For feedback)
• add all skills to the All Skills Sheet within Skills Matrix
• check off where they are on these things
• add column that says not applicable-- create filter to hide
• store it in own drive - viewable by anybody, attach it to open role

Researchers can then join onboarding - Dev 2 - how helpful/ unhelpful did you find link to spreadsheet, anything missing?

[kcoronel]

@bonniewolfe @ExperimentsInHonesty do you have updates on the Data Science Skills Matrix - we can review the DevOps Skills Matrix at our meeting next Monday (9/9)

[kcoronel]

Bonnie - connected Karen via Slack to the DevOps CoP and the Data Science CoP on 9/9. Karen to follow-up to review current draft of skills matrix for each particular CoP.

[ExperimentsInHonesty]

sent the following slack messages:

sent to Data Science

Bonnie
  3:54 PM
[@Sophia Alice](https://hackforla.slack.com/team/UN7V7L934)
 
[@Karina (She/Hers)](https://hackforla.slack.com/team/U01R61T5TRS)
 
[@Abe Khaleghi](https://hackforla.slack.com/team/U02BHS2AGE6)
 - 
[@Karen (she/her/ella) (PST)](https://hackforla.slack.com/team/U010KUGJATC)
 from CTJ has been working on a skills matrix for all volunteers across the communities of practice.  See will get in contact with you to have DevOps review the current Matrix draft for data science volunteers

sent to

[@Sudha Raamakrishnan](https://hackforla.slack.com/team/U07FJRNN9MK)
 please meet 
[@Karen (she/her/ella) (PST)](https://hackforla.slack.com/team/U010KUGJATC)
 from CTJ.  We have been working on a skills matrix for all volunteers across the communities of practice.  See will get in contact with you to have DevOps review the current Matrix draft for ops volunteers