Board skills audit and board capability assessment
Does your Board have the right mix of skills, experience and expertise for the challenges ahead?
Boards need a combination of knowledge, experience and perspectives to provide effective oversight, constructive challenge and strategic direction. But as organisations develop, their requirements change – and it can be difficult to take an objective look at whether the Board still has the capabilities it needs.
A Board Skills Audit provides a structured way to assess the skills, experience and capabilities across your Board, highlighting areas of strength as well as potential gaps and opportunities for development.
This tailored self-assessment tool is designed to help boards identify their strengths and weaknesses, and to create strategies for development, succession, and recruitment.
A Board Skills Audit is a structured assessment of the capabilities and experience available around the Board table.
It gives individual directors an opportunity to reflect on their own skills and experience across a range of relevant areas. The results can then be brought together to provide an overall picture of the Board’s current capabilities.
Used alongside our wider Board review and evaluation work, it can provide valuable insight into both the composition of the Board today and the capabilities you may need in the future.
The assessment can help you explore some important questions:
- What capabilities might we need as the organisation develops?
- Where could additional training, coaching or development make a difference?
- What should we consider when recruiting new directors?
- How can the findings inform succession planning?
- What capabilities might we need as the organisation develops?
- Where could additional training, coaching or development make a difference?
- What should we consider when recruiting new directors?
- How can the findings inform succession planning?
The assessment also provides an opportunity for directors to add their own observations, giving you more than a simple list of skills and qualifications.
A skills audit is only useful if it leads to meaningful discussion and, where appropriate, action.
We can help you interpret the findings in the context of your organisation, your strategy and the challenges facing your Board.
The results might lead to recommendations around:
The Board Skills Audit can be used as a standalone exercise or as part of a broader Board review or Board evaluation.
Our approach is always tailored to the organisation. We take time to understand your objectives and the context in which your Board operates before deciding how best to use the assessment.
Where appropriate, the findings can form one part of a wider review incorporating confidential questionnaires, individual director conversations, Board observation and facilitated discussion.
The objective isn’t simply to produce another report. It is to provide useful insight that helps your Board reflect, identify priorities and decide what to do next.
We understand that discussions about individual skills and capabilities can be sensitive.
The assessment provides directors with a structured opportunity for reflection while allowing the overall findings to be considered at Board level.
Confidentiality and objectivity are central to our approach.
A Board’s effectiveness isn’t determined by its collective CV alone.
Experience and technical expertise matter, but so do the way directors work together, the quality of challenge and debate, Boardroom behaviours, strategic focus and the culture around the Board table.
That’s why we see a Board Skills Audit as a starting point for a more meaningful conversation, rather than an end in itself.
Used well, it can help a Board understand where it is today, consider where it needs to be tomorrow and identify the steps required to get there.
If you are considering a Board Skills Audit, we can talk through what you are hoping to achieve and how the assessment could fit into your wider Board development or evaluation process.
It can be used by established Boards wanting to take stock, organisations going through a period of change, or Boards considering recruitment and succession.
Get in touch to discuss a Board Skills Audit or our wider Board review and evaluation services.
