Quick reference The competency assessment is a self-rating against the CGMA Competency Framework — rating your current proficiency level and your target level for each competency. It is completed at the start of a cycle and forms the baseline for your development planning. The gap between current and target levels drives objective suggestions. The assessment should not be updated at cycle close — it is your honest starting point, not your end-point.
3.1 The CGMA Competency Framework — a brief overview
The CGMA Competency Framework defines the knowledge and skills expected of management accountants at different career stages. It is organised into five knowledge areas:
| Knowledge area | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Technical Skills | Financial reporting, analysis, costing, risk, compliance |
| Business Skills | Strategy, commercial awareness, performance management, data analytics |
| People Skills | Communication, influence, collaboration, relationship management |
| Leadership Skills | Leading teams, functions and organisations; governance |
| Digital Skills | Data literacy, digital tools, cybersecurity, automation |
Each knowledge area contains categories and specific competencies. Every competency is described at four proficiency levels:
| Level | Typical career stage |
|---|---|
| Foundational | Early career / staff level |
| Intermediate | Supervisor / manager |
| Advanced | Senior manager |
| Expert | Executive / C-suite |
The framework is broad by design — it covers the full range of skills needed across the profession. You are not expected to be at Expert level across everything. Most professionals have a mixed profile, with stronger ratings in their specialism and lower ratings in areas outside their day-to-day role.
3.2 Why you do this at the start of a cycle
The competency assessment serves two purposes:
It identifies your development gaps. The difference between your current proficiency and your target level for each competency is your development gap. These gaps are the most meaningful input to your development planning — they tell you where investment will have the most impact.
It creates your baseline. The assessment at the start of the cycle is a record of where you were before the year’s development activities. This baseline is what makes the CIMA Evaluate step meaningful — at year-end, you can compare where you are now against where you started, and articulate what changed.
The assessment is your starting point, not your destination. This is the most common misconception about the assessment. It should reflect honestly where you are right now, including any areas where you feel less confident than your job title might suggest. An assessment that inflates current ratings to look better gives you a weaker baseline — and weaker evidence of development achieved.
3.3 Completing the assessment
Go to Assessments (accessible from the Cycles page or the dashboard Quickstart Guide).
The assessment is structured as a series of competencies grouped by knowledge area. For each competency, you select:
| Rating | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Current level | Your honest current proficiency (Foundational / Intermediate / Advanced / Expert / Not yet developed) |
| Target level | Where you want to be by the end of the cycle |
| Not applicable | This competency is not relevant to your current role |
Each competency has a View description link that expands the proficiency level descriptions for that competency. Use these to calibrate your ratings — the descriptions are specific enough to anchor your self-assessment rather than guessing at what each level means.
Tips for self-assessment
Read the descriptions, not just the level labels. “Intermediate” means different things for different competencies. The descriptions give you the actual behaviours and knowledge expected at each level.
Rate honestly, not aspirationally. Your current level should reflect what you can do today, not what you could do on a good day or what you feel you should be able to do at your career stage.
Set realistic targets. A target one level above your current rating is typically achievable in a year. Targeting two or more levels of improvement across many competencies at once is rarely realistic.
Use “Not applicable” freely. If a competency is genuinely outside your role and you have no reasonable basis for developing in it this cycle, mark it as not applicable. This keeps your gap analysis focused on what matters to you.
You do not have to complete it in one sitting. Progress is saved automatically. You can complete the assessment incrementally across multiple sessions — many members work through one knowledge area at a time.
3.4 Reading your gap analysis
Once you have rated at least some competencies, the gap analysis view is available. This shows, for each knowledge area, the aggregate gap between your current and target proficiency.
The gap analysis identifies:
- Which knowledge areas have the largest overall gap
- Which individual competencies have the largest gap (highest priority for development)
- Areas where you are already at or above your target
Use this to shape your development objectives. The biggest gaps are generally the best candidates for formal development objectives — areas where targeted effort will have the most measurable impact.
3.5 The assessment and your development plan
The gap analysis feeds directly into the Objectives section. When creating a new objective, you can link it to the competency area it addresses. Over the course of the year, as you complete activities against each objective, CPDFlow tracks which competency areas your development is covering.
This connection between assessment → gaps → objectives → activities → reflection is the backbone of the CIMA 6-step cycle. The assessment is the starting point that makes the whole chain coherent.
3.6 After the assessment — moving to Planned
Once you are satisfied with your competency assessment and have created your initial development objectives, you can move your cycle from Draft to Planned. This action:
- Creates Plan v1.0 — your baseline plan snapshot
- Signals that your development plan is confirmed and the active phase of the year can begin
See Chapter 2 — Your CPD Cycle for more on cycle states and transitions.
3.7 A note on reassessment
The competency assessment is completed at the start of the cycle and is not designed to be updated during the year. It is your baseline — the honest record of where you started.
At cycle close, you may feel the urge to update your ratings to reflect development achieved during the year. Resist this. If you update the assessment at close, you overwrite your starting point and lose the ability to compare before and after. The value of the assessment as a planning tool depends entirely on it being an honest record of where you were at the beginning.
Your end-of-cycle progress is captured instead through:
- Completed activities with reflective statements (what you can do now)
- Your overall cycle evaluation (the Evaluate step)
- The plan snapshot comparison (what changed from v1.0 to the final version)
These tell the story of what changed — the assessment tells the story of where you started.
What’s next?
With your assessment complete, you have the gap analysis to inform your development planning. See Chapter 4 — Objectives to create your development objectives for the year.