The global skills and competency framework for the digital world
February 2023 - SFIA update

February 2023 - SFIA update

Strategic imperatives refreshed for 2023 and a new Foundation Board member. User forum section of website now open.

Estimated reading time - 2 min, 20 secs.

Our January News page provided insights on what happened in 2022, and what's to come in 2023. For this month we have news of some of the first actions.

Contents

  1. New SFIA Foundation board member
  2. SFIA Foundation refreshes strategic imperatives
  3. User forum section of website now open. Includes...
  • SFIA Awareness PowerPoint slides
  • Behavioural factors
  • Learning and development catalogues
  • Mapping learning products to SFIA
  • Job architectures
  • Skills-based job analysis

New board member

Chris Fechner, CEO of the Digital Transformation Agency in Australia, has joined the SFIA Foundation Board.

  • Chris will help shape the SFIA Foundation's strategy and activities, with a focus on making SFIA easier to use for organizations developing their workforce's skills and competencies.
  • He brings significant experience in leveraging SFIA across a large and diverse digital workforce.

The SFIA Foundation is a not-for-profit organization and SFIA Foundation Board member roles are voluntary positions.

SFIA Foundation refreshes strategic imperatives

The SFIA Foundation board has refreshed its strategic imperatives. 

  • The direction remains the same, but the imperatives have been refined to emphasize the support to SFIA users via a community-led ecosystem.

Purpose - To enable greater capability and capacity within the global digital workforce.

Our strategic imperatives are:

  1. Active stewardship of the global skills and competency framework and its ecosystem to meet the needs of professionals and employers.
  2. Increase visibility and adoption of SFIA globally
  3. Facilitate effective use and consumption of SFIA via an engaged community and supporting ecosystem.
  4. Ensure sufficient and sustainable funding to deliver the strategic imperatives.

User forum section of website now open

To increase adoption of the SFIA Framework and to increase the quality & consistency of use of the SFIA Framework, we want to increase the level of knowledge sharing and support for SFIA users who area adopting SFIA.

The User forum section is now available on the website.

  • This is being developed to support our strategic aim of facilitating effective use and consumption of SFIA via an engaged community and supporting ecosystem.
  • It provides an opportunity to share ideas and approaches and it is complementary to more formal guidance provided elsewhere on the website.
  • The content will develop over time using a test and learn approach with SFIA Users. The aim is to be non-prescriptive and to encourage thoughtful adoption of SFIA.

SFIA Partners and Consultants are an important part of the SFIA ecosystem. They provide guidance, tools, resources, and real-world experience to help organizations implement SFIA.

Topics to be covered will be led by user priorities and will be grouped around themes such as :

  • Employer's working practices for people and skills management
  • Developing supporting frameworks for consistent and effective people and skills management - such as a job architecture, SFIA profiles, L&D catalogue
  • Planning and implementing the adoption of SFIA to support working practices and supporting frameworks
  • Organizational change management to ensure SFIA is successfully integrated and utilised.

Initial content on the User Forum includes...

  • SFIA Awareness 101 PowerPoint slides (available for download)
  • Behavioural factors
  • Learning and development catalogues
  • Job architectures
  • Skills-based job analysis

Thanks to all contributors who have helped shape the content during 2022.

Background to the SFIA User forum
- The SFIA User forum was created in 2008 on the Ning platform and with a complementary LinkedIn group.
- Due to the Ning platform's increasing cost, the platform was closed down and the LinkedIn group became the only way to facilitate the User forum
- In 2022, SFIA Foundation Board emphasized the importance of supporting end user organizations adopting SFIA.
- The LinkedIn group is good for connecting people, but not suitable for hosting resources.
- To provide support, a User forum section has been created on the website to share resources.
- Development of the User forum section will be driven by user priorities.

If you have any questions or feedback, please get in touch.

Ian Seward

SFIA Foundation General Manager