Start of SFIA 8 consultation

Estimated reading time 2 min, 23 sec

• plus a short video describing the approach and the themes we will explore for SFIA 8.
  

Summary

• Industry practitioners have always driven updates to SFIA.
• The SFIA Foundation manages an open and transparent update process on behalf of the user community.
• Anyone can submit change requests and/or ideas for improvement.  

All change requests have remained public and visible since the publication of SFIA 7 in 2018...

• This includes ideas submitted previously, which didn't get published in SFIA 7.
• Website users have been able to read, comment on, and add new change requests since then.
• You can review these and add your change requests here.

The design of SFIA makes it flexible and easy for organisations to include it in their preferred ways of working...

• You can browse all the SFIA content on this website.
• SFIA is simple to get hold of and easy to copy and paste into your own tools and documents.

Many other frameworks are closed by design...

• You can only access the content by paying fees or subscriptions
• The content can be difficult to get hold off and hard to extract
  •  e.g. in encrypted PDF documents that do not allow printing or "copy and paste" of content
• The owners update their framework "behind closed doors" - before pushing updates out to users. Some frameworks ask for a payment before you can submit ideas for changes.

Scope of SFIA 8 consultation

As for SFIA 7, the consultation will focus on …

• Industry themes. These are hot topics where SFIA users are looking for guidance on the implications for professional skills and competencies. 
• The needs of key SFIA user groups across professional disciplines
• Change requests from SFIA users. These are the views of SFIA practitioners using SFIA in their day to day work.

We may need to consider changes to …

• The core framework - this includes SFIA’s levels of responsibilities, the SFIA skills and the SFIA skill level descriptions.
• Other parts of the SFIA eco-system. 
  
  • As an example - the idea for SFIA views came from the SFIA 7 consultation. SFIA users find them useful, and so we can build on these.
  • Support in the form of additional user guidelines or mappings to complementary industry frameworks.

We plan to publish updates to SFIA in 2021.

The proposed date for publication of SFIA 8 is Q3 2021. We are starting in-depth discussions earlier than we did for the SFIA 7 update project.

There is no need to wait for SFIA 8 before starting your adoption of SFIA.

• In short - go ahead, start your project using SFIA 7. Experience has shown that starting to use SFIA as soon as possible provides more value than waiting for an update.
• Like previous updates – SFIA 8 will be an evolution not a revolution.
• SFIA updates are not like a new version of software. There are no compatibility issues between versions.
• This is a deliberate approach to help users move to newer versions when they are ready.

Starting discussions and investigations now enables …

• More time for in-depth consultation and more time for working with user groups and working parties

• A reduction in lead time for translations.
  • We publish SFIA 7 in 10 languages
  • We are proud of this achievement and the fact that SFIA practitioners commit so much effort to support translations
  • We wish to improve the support provided to users and for SFIA 8 we are adopting a continuous translation approach supported by a translation management system
• Less intense work load for volunteers.
  • Over the last twenty years; our volunteers have made SFIA the success it is today.
  • We rely on their effort and commitment. These people fit their work on SFIA around their busy working lives.
  • We want to help them by reducing the intensity of that workload and spreading the effort over a longer time.

Short video - approach and themes for SFIA 8