The global skills and competency framework for the digital world

#1311 Review LORs and Generics - several CRs in this area change request accepted

The Generics probably need a general review and overhaul. The Industry wants additional generics and this aligns with the general view that 'Business Skills' is overloaded.

We had the start of this discussion during SFIA 7 update but it continues ... there are also a number of related LOR CRs (#1297, #1302 etc.)

The points I've picked up in discussions:

  • Business Skills is overloaded (a catchall for many attributes)
  • Bring out Security & Privacy (from Business Skills) to a generic in its own right
  • Bring out Ethics to support professionalism
  • Bring out Digital User Attributes
  • Consider employability skills
  • Consider bringing people development into the generics more explicitly

We should also consider how the LoRs are presented and explained.

  • Easier presentation of individual Generic Attributes to show progression
  • When a lower level component is also required at a higher level and when not
  • Do all Generics run all 7 levels
  • Are all Generics required for a Level or is some 'majority' sufficient

Proposed change applies to Levels of responsibility

Current status of this request: accepted

What we decided

Include in review of levels of responsibility and generic attributes for SFIA 8

SFIA Updates Manager
Jun 25, 2020 03:19 PM

I think we need to be clear what" overloaded means and the impact. This is what I mean by being overloaded.
• It seems an issue that Business Skills part of the LoRs is a set of attributes which don't have too much in common with each other.
• The principal thing holding them together under one heading is that they don't fit in any of the other 4 (autonomy, influence, complexity, knowledge)!!
This is not unique to SFIA and can happen to any classification approach. We are managing a trade-off to keep the number of categories manageable.
For most uses of SFIA and it use over the last 20 years - having a "Bucket” called business skills to put things in hasn’t cause too much of an issue, if it causes an issue at all.
• Anyone reading them can be see that they are separate entities under one heading and can deal with that depending on the context they are being used.
One area where we do have issue is in formal assessments
• where a single assessment of Business skills is covering some quite different dimensions.
• To give a single rating for an assessment of business skills – requires an “averaging” approach.
• This may hide the fact that , for example, the assessor needs the security element to be mandatory, but other elements can be treated with an overall, balanced judgment.