Lessons Learned Launching and Scaling Capability Management Programs

Steven Forth is co-founder and managing partner at Ibbaka. See his skill profile here.

There is growing interest in the use of skill and competency management as a leverage point to build new capabilities. With people looking to the post Pandemic economy and developing plans for how they will move forward it is important to pause and look at what is working and how to approach the design of these capability programs.

There are some big choices that organizations need to make and best practices for roll out and adoption. You can view a presentation that Ibbaka did on this theme here.

The capability management transformation

Some of the key points.

The goal of capability management is to align capabilities with goals across all levels 

• Individual - help the individual to achieve their work and career goals

• Team - bring together the right people on teams

• Organization - make sure organizations have the skills they need to achieve strategic goals

• Society - are we building resilient and adaptive societies that give everyone the chance to develop their potential

One of the critical best practices is to design the initial roll out around one use case for a defined group of people.

The other best practice is to support both bottom up and top down approaches simultaneously.

Leaders need to be engaged, whether the leaders are management, thought leaders, respected experts or culture bearers.

One big design challenge is to decide whether on should have one large model for the entire organization, or multiple linked models for different business functions, lines of business or areas of expertise.

This choice has many cascading implications and should be made in the context of overall corporate strategy. Highly centralized companies may want to take on the challenges of ‘one big model.’ More maticed or distributed organizations may be better off with the extra work of managing a more modular approach.

At Ibbaka we continue to research and evaluate best practices for the adoption of capability management. We will be happy to have a conversation with you on this. Reach out at info@ibbaka.com

Ibbaka Posts on Competency Models and Competency Frameworks

• Competency models as learning plans

• From user experience to competency model design - Margherita Bacigalupo and EntreComp

• Competency framework designers on competency framework design: Jeff Griffiths on transversal and vertical skills

• Competency framework designers on competency framework design: The chunkers and the slice and dicers

• Competency framework designers on competency framework design: Victoria Pazukha

• Two podcasts on competency model design from Vancouver

• The A in KSA is for Abilities or Attitudes or Attributes?

• Do competency frameworks need competency definitions?

• Should you have a personal competency model?

• Designing a skill competency model - the Ibbaka approach

• Design research - How do people approach the design of skill and competency models?

• Designing a blueprint for your competency model framework

• From competency model design to competency model generation

• The WEF on Building a Common Language for Skills at Work

• Aligning skill and competency models with microcredentials - a conversation between Don Presant and Kul Sharma

• Three Metaphors for Skills and Competencies

• The Skills for Career Mobility - Interview with Dennis Green

• Competencies or skills - what should you assess?

• Lessons Learned Launching and Scaling Capability Management Programs (this post)

• Designing a Competency Model for Innovation Coaches

• Talent Transformation - A Conversation with Eric Shepherd, Martin Belton and Steven Forth

• Who cares about skill and competency models

• Competency Model Definitions - the IEEE ups its game

• Simple (very simple) skill and competency models

• Individual - Team - Organizational use cases for skill and competency management

• Design decisions for developing a competency framework

• What is skill management?

• Competency models are living documents and need curation

• Some key use cases for competency model adoption

• Designing the Open Competency Model Architecture

• A third skillscape

• Building skill and competency models together

• Getting past competency model PTSD

• Co-creation of Competency Models for Customer Success and Pricing Excellence

• Competencies for Adaptation to Climate Change – An Interview with Dr. Robin Cox

• Architecting the Competencies for Adaptation to Climate Change Open Competency Model

• Introducing open competency models

• Integrating Skills and Competencies in the Talent Management Ecosystem

• Organizational values and competency models – survey results

• Why your job architecture needs a competency model

• Are values part of your competency model?

• How to build competency models

• A skill name is just a word, isn’t it?

• Current trends in skill and competency management

• Enabling internal mobility - a design thinking approach