Preparing for SFIA | Role Descriptions
The SFIA framework offers a lot of workforce management benefits to both the business and employees. These include targeted training (making sure the $$ are spent where they can do the most good), career planning (showing people a future within the organization), succession planning, talent management and more. The first and essential step to achieving these benefits is the creation of SFIA Role Descriptions across the ICT team.
A Good Role Description
A good Role Description clearly states what is expected of any employee carrying out the role. Role Descriptions are not personalized or tailored to a specific person they only address the role. As a minimum a Role Description will include sections covering:
- Professional skills (like Software Testing, Business Analysis, Procurement)
- Technical skills (like Java, SAP, Oracle)
- Behavioral skills (like leadership, business skills and communication)
- Experience & Qualifications (e.g. ACS CP, Prince2, Degree in IT or equivalent, etc…)
Caution #1: Beware the generic Role Description
In this first article we are looking at the preparation and implementation of SFIA Role Descriptions. As simple as this seems, creating Role Descriptions can be tricky. Over many implementations we at Ensys have found risks if the content of a Role Description is too broad.
As mentioned above Role Descriptions are for the role not a person, but sometime the outcome is a very high-level Role Description with very generic skills. This appears to address the aim of designing Role Descriptions that can be used across a number of roles within the organization but sometime it can be taken too far.
For example, a Position Description for a PROJECT MANAGER may have generic requirements, for instance:
- Experience in Project Management planning, delivering benefits on-time and to budget
- Governance and financial accountability of projects
- Effective communication to stakeholders, sponsors and vendor suppliers
- Experience with Prince 2.
Within this Role Description the organization may employ different levels of Project Managers as well as those specializing in niche products. For example, this could cover senior project managers and junior project managers; it could also cover contract SAP Project Managers, Infrastructure Project Managers, R&D Project Managers and so on…
The problems appear in day to day workforce management processes.
When selecting suitable candidates for the role and measuring their skills you will encounter many problems:
- When recruiting – the brief to the agency and/or advertisement will deliver a large number of potential candidates
- When shortlisting – the Role Description does not assist to identify good candidates or for that matter help identify poor candidates
- Skills are incomplete and woolly – lacking clear expectations and measures to manage performance either during a probation period or as part of personal development processes
- Level of experience is not defined – no statement of capability either within the role or with business as a whole
- Key technical skills are omitted – such as a requirement to have SharePoint, system integration or Oracle Financials experience
- Levels of competency are omitted – how big were the teams, did the project have major business impacts, how complex was the budget and so on
- Professional experience is not defined – ACS certification, Prince 2, ITIL, previous projects etc
The net effect is a role description that is not worth the paper it is written on.
Working to improve the business information
To overcome this it is necessary to define each role to an adequate level of detail. This is not easy, and it cannot be done by ICT, nor can it be done by HR – the only way is for ICT and HR working in equal partnership.
In our experience, many ICT departments can cringe at the thought of addressing their Role Descriptions – the process can be quite time consuming and they have other more important work to do. This attitude is wrong – unless you clearly define roles you can never be certain you are delivering service to the business.
For more information about preparing for your SFIA Implementation Project, contact Ensys Consulting today.