Managerial Assessment of Proficiency - MAP Assessment Process

MAP Assessment Process

Dr. Scott Parry, creator of the tool and 1999 inductee into the HRD, Academy of Resource Development, Hall of Fame, developed the MAP competency framework by first analysing the results of a series of large competency studies conducted by a number of major organisations. Cliff Lansley, who leads the further development of MAP with fellow Director Cameron Robertson has used the tool in studies across 100's of major public and private sector organisations and he says' "we now have powerful benchmarking data of leadership competencies across most organisational sectors. What is unique here, is that MAP is the only objective diagnostic tool for managerial and leadership compenece measurement that exists in the world. All other tools are based merely on self-report, 360 degree opinion or subjective judgement by an assessor".

The studies looked at a number of leading corporations to identify the competencies and attributes that were important to the performance of managers. IBM, AT&T, Henley Management College, Ford and Kodak came up with very similar managerial competencies and these were analysed. The developers of MAP selected 12 of the most frequently mentioned competencies, those common to most frameworks, and arranged them in 4 clusters and 2 broad categories: task-handling (left column) and people-handling (right column).

Dr. Scott Parry, developer of the MAP Assessment competency framework and tool, defines competencies as "a group of related skills, knowledge, and attitudes that correlate with success in one’s job and that can be improved through training”.

The assessment involves studying a series of real-life management situations covering a week in the life of a typical manager and his team and answering a series of questions about your judgement of what you’ve seen.

The situations covered include:

• team meetings
• time management
• delegating
• discipline and empathy
• appraising staff
• performance management
• problem solving
• listening.

Following each short scene the delegates answer a series of questions based on what they have been watching. They are then asked if, in their opinion, the management behaviour they have seen is good or bad practice.

The scenarios are very effective in getting managers to be a part of the assessment process because they are based on the real situations that they regularly have to deal with on a day to day basis, resulting in high face validity scores.

There are also two paper-based questionnaires that help determine their preferred styles of managing and communicating and the impact that can have in the workplace.

At the end of the day the assessment is scored online and a personal profile produced within minutes. This is in readiness for Day 2 of the MAP Assessment process.

The second day of the process is the interpretation of the assessment scores providing delegates with a development ‘road map’ for their ongoing development.

If a team is being assessed then a group profile is also produced to take into account the department or team’s training and development needs.