Different organizations and organization units have different purposes for conducting competency assessments. There are different types of competency assessments of varying rigour and more than one type of assessment can be combined to create a customised assessment depending on the purpose.

Project Management Institute (PMI), in its Project Management Competency Development Framework classifies project management competency assessment types into low rigour, medium rigour and high rigour. These competency assessments yield more accurate assessments as the rigour increases and require progressively more effort to conduct them. Sample assessment types for each level of rigour is depicted in the diagram below.

Competency assessment types

The low rigour assessments involve self assessment questionnaire for instance. These self assessments can give enough guidance for an individual project manager to identify areas of improvement and plan a competency improvement road map. This assessment type does not involve much effort for the organization to conduct except for a one time development of the self assessment questionnaire. However, the rigour of self assessment would be insufficient to take managerial decisions based on assessment results. For instance, to hire a project manager from outside the organization or to decide salary hikes or promotions self assessments would not be of sufficient rigour. Assessment results that drive management decisions need to be of a medium rigour or high rigour or a combination of both. 

Hence, the purpose of conducting assessment will determine what type of assessment or a combination of assessments should be used. The following diagram illustrates some example purposes and the corresponding assessments that can be deployed for the purpose.

Competency assessment purposes

As cost of assessment increases as the rigour increases, an organiztion or organization unit should choose the competency assessment methods carefully so that the purpose of competency assessments can justify the cost involved in the customised competency assessments. ACE offers all the above types of assessments either in isolation or in combination. You might find this case study of customised competency assessment interesting.