The NIST NICE Heat Map helps your organization measure and address cybersecurity skills gaps by aligning team performance with the NIST NICE Framework.
What is the NIST NICE Framework?
The NICE Framework is a globally recognized resource that categorizes cybersecurity work into five Work Role Categories and 41 specific Work Roles.
Each Work Role is defined by TKS statements, which describe the requirements for performing cybersecurity work:
- Tasks – specific activities or units of work directed toward organizational objectives.
- Knowledge – a retrievable set of concepts required to complete a task.
- Skills – the capacity to perform an observable action.
How to read the Heat Map
The Heat Map uses color intensity to represent your organization's alignment with the framework, so you can spot coverage gaps at a glance. Access it by navigating to Frameworks > NIST NICE Framework in the top navigation bar.
The color of each Work Role tile reflects your team's current alignment percentage:
- Good alignment (70–100%) – represented by green.
- Partial alignment (40–69%) – represented by yellow.
- Low alignment (0%–39%) – represented by red.
- No Content Mapped (N/A) – represented by a white tile.
“No Content Mapped” (N/A)
If a Work Role shows as “No Content Mapped” (N/A), the platform doesn't yet have sufficient content mapped to the TKS statements for that role. We maintain this strict threshold to preserve data integrity; we only provide a maturity score when it's backed by significant data density, so your risk decisions are actionable and defensible.
Proactive risk management for managers
The Heat Map gives managers the ability to target the specific skills gaps that carry the most risk to the organization.
- Filtered Views – your view depends on your manager role:
- Org Managers – view the alignment of the entire workforce.
- Team Managers – see a pre-filtered view of your specific teams.
- Granular Drilling – both views let you use the Teams filter to drill down into specific sub-groups
Granular Gap Analysis
Click any Work Role to open a detailed side panel. This reveals exactly which TKS statements are:
- Demonstrated (Green): Successfully completed by at least one member of the team.
- Not Demonstrated (Red): Mapped content exists on the platform but has not been completed.
- Unmapped (icon): Content is not yet available on the platform for this specific TKS statement.
Dual-Layer Benchmarking
The side panel displays alignment against both the National Framework and the Platform Catalog. This transparency helps you identify whether a skill gap exists because of a lack of training or a lack of available content.
Daily “Snapshot of Truth”
Data refreshes daily at 03:00 GMT. This provides a stable, reliable snapshot for your daily reporting cycles, stand-ups, and stakeholder updates.
Explore by Teams/Sub-Teams and Individual Contributors
Managers can move beyond aggregate team data to view the specific contributions of sub-teams and every team member. Navigate to “Explore by” and select “Teams” from the drop-down.
- Select Teams and Work Roles: You can drill into specific areas by searching by work role name (e.g., Cybersecurity Architecture) and/or work role number (e.g., IO-WRL-001).
- Drill Down into Teams & Sub-Teams: Click on a specific Work Role to see the team’s alignment.
- Individual Performance: Drill down further to view individual contributors. Click on a specific team member to open a side panel showing their personal alignment to that Work Role. This view highlights their progress, clearly displaying which TKS statements are Demonstrated (Green), Not Demonstrated (Red), or Unmapped (icon), allowing you to pinpoint personalized skill gaps.
- Identify Skill Leaders and Single Points of Failure: View which individuals are contributing most to a Work Role's alignment score, helping you identify subject matter experts (talent) and potential single points of failure (risk) within your team.
💡 Pro-Tip: building targeted training
If you identify a “Not Demonstrated” TKS statement that's important to your team, you can build a targeted training path manually. Go to Manage > Custom Collections and select Create New. Filter by NIST NICE Framework and select the relevant Work Role. Locate the TKS number you identified on the Heat Map, then click View Labs and use the plus (+) sign to add that content to your collection for assignment.
FAQs
How is the alignment percentage calculated?
The score measures the breadth of unique skills covered. If one user demonstrates a TKS statement, it contributes to the alignment percentage. If multiple users demonstrate the same statement, the score doesn't increase further, because that specific skill requirement is already considered “covered” for the team or organization.
What does “Unmapped” mean?
“Unmapped” statements are parts of the complete NIST NICE Framework for which content isn't yet available on the platform. We display these to give you full transparency, and they act as a roadmap for where you may need to plan supplemental training.
Why did my score go down?
To maintain an audit-ready posture, the Heat Map only tracks active license holders. A score will decrease if a user leaves the organization, moves to a different team (affecting team views), or has their license revoked.