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This page offers a collection of skills assessment tools and surveys for help in analyzing individual skills or profiling the skills of teams (groups of presenters).
Skills Assessment Evaluation Tool
From published research, an assessment tool has been created to allow individuals to self-assess; or, to give managers a chance to assess others. Sometimes, external videos are submitted and the assessment is done by an expert. This service is called Digital Coaching.
TRY IT! Evaluate yourself or someone else using our FREE Skills Assessment.
Just follow the link, fill-in the form and the results will be e-mailed back to you!
Below is a SAMPLE EVALUATION FORM (4 pages in all), from a Digital Coaching session, indicating selected observations of challenges and opportunities across 21 skill categories.
The 21 skills are grouped into core categories of PERSONALITY, PROCESS and PERFORMANCE, followed by RESULTS page which calculates the effectiveness of the speaker.
The 11 PERSONALITY categories
Page 1, above, covers the PERSONALITY elements of a presenter. Challenges in this section can be overcome by actions related to the other two areas of PROCESS and PERFORMANCE.
The 5 PROCESS categories
Page 2, above, covers the five PROCESS related areas, focusing on the skills needed to convey the message. These elements can help develop some of the personality factors. For example, if a presenter is challenged with expertise (Skill 7 on page 1), where information appears too complex, then the opportunities in Skills 12, 13 and 14 can help “simplify” the content by reducing text on visuals, or by adding stories, examples and analogies to the presentation.
If this form is used by a presentations skills coach, there is an area on this page available for specific comments and suggestions for improvement, as shown in the above sample.
The 5 PERFORMANCE categories
Page 3, above, shows the PERFORMANCE related skills. Many of these skills are clearly observed by the audience, and, for that reason, effective presentation training targets the areas of body language, speaking style and interaction. The skills in this area directly affect the personality elements, such as self confidence, empathy, caring, energy, and approachability.
Shows ratings for different audience types
Page 4, above, highlights (in yellow) areas of concern where challenges exceed opportunities. Ratings for different audiences are shown, along with a SPEAKER INDEX.
The sample “Digital Coaching” subject above depicts a speaker who has several “challenges” to overcome and many opportunities still to take. There is a degree of inconsistency across audience types. Based on this evaluation, the speaker is using skills more geared to the “professional learner” and will be more effective in front of groups seeking general concepts, rather than those needing to learn a process. In comparative terms, this speaker would better delivering a marketing presentation than conducting a training session.
The overall speaker index indicates there some additional skills are needed to maximize the potential. Keep in mind that this is only the first evaluation (Timeline 0), without the speaker knowing the individual skill areas that need improvement. For development purposes, a realistic target for this speaker would be an index of about 75, with no more than a 3% deviation, representing about a 20% increase in effectiveness.
Effective speakers usually have a Speaker Index of 80 or higher, with a deviation of no more than 2%. These are speakers who have very few challenges and take advantage of most opportunities, with little or no deviation across audience types.
A Note about Audience Types
From a learning perspective, the research identifies diverse audience types described as: STUDENTS and PROFESSIONALS. When comparing groups of students with groups of professionals, the findings indicate that each group places significance differently on each skill category. The above assessment accounts for these different perspectives and separates audiences into three groups of learners: Students, Professionals and a combination of both.
A STUDENT learner is defined as one who requires knowledge in order to participate in a desired activity. This group not only includes traditional “students”, but it is extended to also include residents, trainees, and anyone who needs to immediately apply learned concepts. So the term “student” is used in this assessment.
A professional is also a “learner” but in a slightly different sense.
A PROFESSIONAL learner is defined as one who desires knowledge in order to add to an existing activity. Professionals include those who incorporate learned concepts over a period of time. Like students, they are learning, but they are using the knowledge to augment an existing practice or job function over a longer period.
In many cases, an audience can be a mix of both student learners and professional learners, and this combination is basically an “average” of the two groups.