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Building Deep Skill Architecture
Moving Beyond "Can They Do It?" to "Can They Grow and Adapt?"

August 7th, 2025 – By Rebecca Taylor

Lisa had been a marketing analyst for three years at a growing SaaS company. Her Excel skills were legendary, her campaign analysis thorough, and her reports always delivered on time. When the marketing operations role opened up, she seemed like the natural fit.

But six months into the new position, both Lisa and her manager were frustrated. The technical work was solid, but Lisa struggled when campaign strategies needed to shift mid-flight. When stakeholders asked “what would happen if we tried approach B instead of A?” she often responded with uncertainty. Her expertise felt narrow, trapped within the boundaries of what she’d always done.

Lisa had mastered surface-level skills but hadn’t developed what SkillCycle calls Deep Skill Architecture the ability to adapt and apply capabilities across different contexts, situations, and challenges.

The difference between surface skills and deep skills determines whether your team members reach a plateau or continue to ascend toward their full potential.
Lisa had been a marketing analyst for three years at a growing SaaS company. Her Excel skills were legendary, her campaign analysis thorough, and her reports always delivered on time. When the marketing operations role opened up, she seemed like the natural fit.

But six months into the new position, both Lisa and her manager were frustrated. The technical work was solid, but Lisa struggled when campaign strategies needed to shift mid-flight. When stakeholders asked “what would happen if we tried approach B instead of A?” she often responded with uncertainty. Her expertise felt narrow, trapped within the boundaries of what she’d always done.

Lisa had mastered surface-level skills but hadn’t developed what SkillCycle calls Deep Skill Architecture the ability to adapt and apply capabilities across different contexts, situations, and challenges.

The difference between surface skills and deep skills determines whether your team members reach a plateau or continue to ascend toward their full potential.

How did we get here?

Traditional hiring and development approaches focus on job titles and role descriptions. The assumption traditionally made is that if someone has relevant experience in a similar position, they can carry past successes into the new role.

However, this approach creates a critical blind spot, according to SkillCycle research. A skills inventory is a compilation of employees’ skills, education, and experiences used to evaluate what skills exist within a company’s workforce at a given point in time.

The skills inventory represents a fundamental reframe from traditional competencies-based models. The focus shifts to capabilities, which builds awareness of how skills and knowledge can be shared throughout an organization.

This shift has become essential: 85% of HR executives plan or are considering a redesign of how work is organized, allowing skills to be flexibly transferred across different projects over the next three years. Additionally, 77% of business and HR executives believe that flexibly moving skills to work is critical to navigating future disruptions.

A Skills-first approach

The traditional interview question “Can you do X?” reveals only surface capability. It tells you whether someone has performed a task before, but provides no insight into their ability to adapt that skill to new contexts. To create a Deep Skill Architecture, start with re-structuring your questions.

Instead of: “Can you manage a marketing campaign?” Ask: “When would you choose an email nurture sequence versus a social media push? Walk me through how you’d decide.”

Instead of: “How well do you know Python?” Ask: “You have a data analysis task that could be solved with SQL or Python. What factors would influence your choice of approach?”

Instead of: “Have you led a team before?” Ask: “Describe a time when you had to influence someone without formal authority. What approach did you take and why?”

These questions reveal contextual thinking rather than just technical ability. They show whether someone can adapt their skills to different situations, stakeholders, and constraints.

How do modern managers lead their teams in a skills-first world?

The ultimate goal of Deep Skill Architecture extends beyond developing individual capabilities. It creates teams that are more resilient, adaptable, and capable of tackling complex challenges collaboratively The Harvard Business Review advocates for the manager-as-coach model, where leaders co-create learning journeys rather than prescribing standardized solutions. By guiding critical reflection, asking probing questions, and carefully structuring stretch assignments, managers accelerate their team’s competency development across the entire skill journey.

A modern approach to skills assessment moves beyond checkbox evaluations to explore the depth and adaptability of capabilities.

Level 1: Task Execution Can perform the skill when given explicit instructions

Level 2: Situational Application Can adapt the skill based on different contexts

Level 3: Teaching and Transfer Can explain when/why to use the skill and teach others

Level 4: Innovation and Enhancement Can improve the skill or combine it with others creatively

Most performance reviews stop at Level 1. Deep Skill Architecture development requires understanding where team members operate across all four levels.

Actions to start today

Let’s stop here to dig into some important terms to help us frame how a manager can put deep skill architecture into action.

Skills Inventory Mapping Create visual representations showing current skill strengths and gaps for each team member, overlap and redundancy, and emerging skills needed for upcoming projects

Growth Conversation Framework Structure one-on-ones around skill development and hit on the following topics

  • What skills are you most excited to develop?
  • Where do you see gaps between your current capabilities and your career goals?
  • What opportunities can we create for you to practice new skills in a supported environment?

Cross-Training Networks Identify team members who can teach and mentor others by creating knowledge-sharing opportunities and recognize those who invest time developing others. Consider crafting projects that deliberately push people beyond their comfort zones.

How to measure its impact

Evaluating the impact of Deep Skill Architecture requires different measurement approaches that capture growth, adaptability, and skill transfer. It is distinctly and deliberately different than traditional performance review matrices, introducing a four-level measure model.

Level 1 Metrics: Task Completion

  • Project delivery timelines and quality standards
  • Technical skill certifications or training completions
  • Error rates and efficiency improvements

Level 2 Metrics: Situational Adaptation

  • Performance consistency across different types of projects
  • Ability to adjust approach based on changing requirements
  • Success rate when working with new stakeholders or constraints

Level 3 Metrics: Knowledge Transfer
  • Effectiveness in mentoring or training others
  • Quality of documentation and process improvement suggestions
  • Ability to explain decision-making rationale clearly

Level 4 Metrics: Innovation and Integration
  • Frequency and impact of process improvements or creative solutions
  • Success in leading cross-functional initiatives
  • Recognition from peers and stakeholders for collaborative problem-solving


Now you’re ready to level up to continuous performance and development cycles

Replace traditional performance reviews with Skills Portfolio conversations that focus on:

Skills Inventory Update:What new capabilities have you developed?

Application Examples: Where have you applied existing skills in new contexts?

Transfer Opportunities: How have you shared knowledge with others?

Growth Priorities: What skills do you want to develop next and why?

Support Needs: What resources or experiences would accelerate your development?

This approach shifts the conversation from evaluation to development, from past performance to future potential.

Try This Week

The Hidden Skills Audit:

Schedule 20-minute conversations with three team members and ask “What’s a skill you have that we haven’t used much in your current role?” Follow-up with “What would need to change for you to apply that skill here?” Document what surprises you about their responses.

A person with curly dark hair and wearing a black, off-the-shoulder top smiles at the camera, exuding confidence. Behind them is a plain, light-colored wall. Their radiant expression suggests theyve mastered the SkillCycle on I Hate it Here.

About the Author

Rebecca brings her years of experience in the HR and People space to SkillCycle as the first official employee and Co-founder. Throughout her 10 years in HR, she developed and spearheaded People strategies that made her companies successful and protected their most valuable asset – the people. Her goal is to empower people to invest in themselves and their teams, to increase employee engagement, retention, and performance.

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