Staff Revit Competency Checklist

[gavin]

I have been tasked with assessing the Revit Competency of each staff member, to determine future training requirements and project teams etc...

To assess and assign each user a competency category (Novice, Intermediate, Advanced or Expert) I've developed a checklist for each user to fill out...see the attached spreadsheet. We will then go through and determine the overall competency category they belong to.

This is my first draft and I've tried to keep this reasonably generic in terms of each 'process' but it also needs to be specific enough for us to determine the exact tools/processes that the user needs more training on.

I would appreciate any feedback on the checklist, particularly the processes within each skill level (e.g. is it realistic to expect a Novice user to know how to edit a Railing?), and also if I've covered off most of the general processes that can be performed within Revit Architecture?

Many thanks.

[CoreyDaun]

Hello,

I don't think that a simple checklist is really sufficient. There are a lot of users who believe they understand or know how to work with even basic elements of Revit, but are dumbfounded when the situation is atypical from the norm. I imagine that it's difficult for people to answer questions like this honestly because they don't want to be seen as a total idiot when it comes to Revit, even though that's not the intent of the questionnaire.

I'm from an MEP firm, but I did something similar (my intent was to educate, rather than rate their abilities), but instead of asking if they knew how to use a particular aspect of Revit, I drew up dummy plans for a very simple Revit Project and included a checklist of tasks (all simple) that employed specific use of Revit, such as "As Alternate Bid, Room 100 will have a bisecting wall, north to south" [use of Design Options]. I also noted that if they didn't know how to do it, don't worry. Once they completed a task, they were instructed to check off that task on the list.

I liked this method because they were able to figure some of the stuff out on their own that they didn't know before, which is remembered far better than if they were just told how to do it. It also proved to be an accurate depiction of their level of Revit competence.

[Anonymous]

Good points Corey.

Also - people just don't know what they don't know. Without fail, every time I think I've got a firmer grasp on Revit - it slips through my fingers again when something unusual crops up.

Take one of the items in the list - linking and managing Revit files - Are you simply expecting someone to be able to insert a Linked Revit file ? how about Survey/Project base points, shared coordinates, Copy/monitor ? A member of staff who is unaware of those items, but has inserted a linked file may well think they can tick that box - yet may struggle when it comes to managing files / collaboration workflows.

I think the list is a start, and it is probably better to use it as a checklist for interviews / monitoring progress.

[gavin]

Thank you both for your responses.

I understand that we're asking a lot to just tick a box to say 'I know how to do that'...nothing is ever that simple.

Looking at a bigger picture, the main outcome we want to get from this exercise is to be able to get an indication of how many staff are novice, intermediate, advanced and expert - to be able to let a large Client know "we have ~10% Novice, ~40% Int, ~30% Adv...etc". 

We have a small office (15 people, with the majority who are probably Int-Adv.) and we do not want to make the staff sit a 'test' of their knowledge. We trust that they will be realtively truthful in their responses, and if they really don't know what the copy/monitor tool does for example, then (hopefully) they will tick no...if they tick yes, then they will miss out on training to advance their skills.

Everyone here is fairly open and we will discuss the intent of this checklist as a group.

The list is intended to be a very simple broad brush of what tools within Revit they think they know the basic principles and methods of. Working with them during the course of a project we'll get an understanding of their actual knowledge!

Once we have an indication of the basic level of knowledge we'll create a training project similar to CADastrope's response - but we'll need to know at what level to pitch the training so it covers the requirements of the users.

Thanks

[CoreyDaun]

Alright. There are a couple of items that I would modify:

Add "Working with Elements and Phases" to Novice.

This is basic and fundamental to Revit. Unless, of course, all of your Projects are completely new. Note that this is different from "Managing Project Phases" under Intermediate.

Add "Working with Tags" under Novice.

This would include both Model Tags and Spot Tags.

Add "Amending View Scale, Visual Style, and Detail Level" under Novice.

This is easy, and very basic.

Move "Using Object Styles and View/Graphic Overrides" from Intermediate to Novice.

Any user should know how to at least toggle Category visibility on and off. Very basic stuff.

Add "Working with Scope Boxes" under Intermediate.

That is, if you employ these at your company. We use them frequently, here.

Add "Working with View Range and Plan Regions" under Intermediate.

I feel no explanation is needed, here.

Remove "All of the Novice skills" under intermediate.

There's no reason for this. I believe that if a user is short by one or two under Novice, he will be compelled to check it just so he can check this one.

Remove "All of the Novice & Intermediate skills" under Advanced.

Same as above.

Change "Creating Worksets and adding/amending elements to worksets" to "Creating and Managing Worksets" in Advanced.

You have "Using Worksets" under Intermediate, which should cover "adding/amending elements to a workset".

[gavin]

Thanks Corey,

I appreciate the suggestions.

I have changed the No/Kind of/Yes to a scale so staff can pick from 1-5 if they understand the principles and method of each 'tool'.

Plus I've taken out the Novice, Int, Adv, Exp categories and replaced with Basic tools, Intermediate tools, Advanced tools and Expert tools. This should hopefully make the users not feel like they are being slotted into a category.

I'll be presenting this to all staff on Monday, so hopefully all goes well and we get what we want out of it.

Thanks again for your help.

[Anonymous]

 Could I please get a copy of the amended staff assessment form as I have been asked to assess the staff at my new office. This would be a great help. Thanks in advance.

[t.davies]

cant see anything to do with topos......?

ooops - read twice, comment once ;-)...... intermediate skills!!

[gavin · Accepted solution]

Hi all,

Skills Development Matrix attached...

Let me know if you have any feedback,.

Gavin

[david.donaldson]

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@gavin wrote:

Hi all,

Skills Development Matrix attached...

Let me know if you have any feedback,.

Gavin

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Gavin,

Very good attempt at quantifying a users competency levels. I have one issue though with your matrix: if the person filling in the matrix enters 1 for everything, i..e. the "Never really done it" response, they still score 20% competency. Surely this should score 0% competency? The ratings should probably go from 0 to 5, with 0 being the "Never really done it" response and 5 being something like "I consider myself an expert on this" or "Completely proficient". The intermediate ratings stay the same.

It's been almost 2 years since you posted your matrix, so it might have already been updated to follow something similar to the above. Would be good to get your opinion on this.

David

[J_Norton]

Gavin, any chance you would be willing to post an editable version?

[RobDraw]

See message #9. The one marked as the solution.

[J_Norton]

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[HVAC-Novice]

I think it is a good idea.... but the problem is someone could do a lot of these things, but could do them wrong or in very inefficient ways. Self assessment also is a problem. I've used Revit for maybe 10 years and create some pretty complex things, but still consider myself a student (and always will be). But someone could be very over-confident and think they know it all after once starting up the software and give themselves full score. 

I don't have a better idea. But assessing if people understand how all the different parameters interact (shared, family, global etc.), all the view properties (from categories, filters, object styles......) would be a good way to see if someone has the basis to be considered novice or above. I also would emphasize on efficient modeling and family creation to not create overly bloated models and families. 

[RPTHOMAS108]

You perhaps need a more up to date list than one added five Revit versions ago.

I mean what would be advanced or novice these days may have changed e.g. I'm not sure if Dynamo was on the list, but it would have been considered advanced then but not so much now perhaps (if it is a measure of how common the skill).

Training to ensure the responsibilities related to a certain role can be performed is better than classifying skill level because what features count as requiring which skill level is subjective. If all you do is manage worksets and shared coordinates then those are the easiest things in the world but you probably struggle to do something more common that is trivial to others.

If you focus on roles and workflows then training requirements can then be as basic as: this role requires these skills, which of them are you struggling with? Managers should know what work their people are undertaking and what skills are required to do that work (they created the workflow so should know what is required for it).