There are many reasons to infer skills from unstructured content. It is one way to seed skill profiles and to keep them current. It is also used in future skills research and in skill-based strategies, where finding skill differentiation is critical. In this post we look at some of the emerging best practices.

Some see competency definitions as the heart of competency frameworks. Ibbaka supports this in its Competency Modeling Environment, but our own approach is a bit different. Ibbaka dynamically assembles competency models or frameworks from data on roles, behaviors, skills and performance. Competency definitions are not always included. This gives more adaptive models that are better aligned with performance.

Skill and competency models often focus narrowly on what is needed for work or a profession. But this is too narrow a perspective. We are more than the skills we need for work, and the work that we do requires more than those skills. A holistic approach can reveal more or our potential and make it easier to find the people we need to be working with.

Skill and competency models are generally seen as an organizational tool. They are thought of as a way to organize information about skills and competencies and align them with the organization to support skill gap analysis or career pathing. As individuals take more control more their careers, skill and competency models can become more personalized and a tool fo individuals and teams.

Skills have been described as the new currency of business. Understanding skills has become an important skillset in its own right. One of the best ways to understand a person or a team’s skills is the skill interview. This is a structured approach that leads to a coded transcript that can be used in many ways in introducing skills.

What are the key business questions for skill and expertise management? How will answering these questions change your business? Critical performance questions.

Skill management works when seeded with skill & project data, connected to systems like CRM & project management when people get direct value from use.

TeamFit's skill insight technology clarifies competitive positioning and core capabilities. Here we compare Fjord, Frog, IDEO.