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Ron McLaren
Operations Manager, The SFIA Foundation
MANAGING CAPABILITY
Agenda
 Introduction
 What is SFIA
 How it is used
 Users’ experiences
 How does it relate to EQF
 Summary
IN 20 MINUTES – MUST GO QUICKLY
BUT SPEAK SLOWLY !
Festina lente
Who is Ron McLaren
 ICL/Fujitsu Services
 Set up and led a Technical Professional Community
created professional framework
for 13,000 technical staff in 25 countries
 16 professional profiles
not Job Descriptions “what I do”
but Professional Profiles “what I am”
 Fundamental change across the company
development and deployment of staff
 Invited to help define SFIA
SFIA
 Created by the IT industry for the IT industry
 Contributors: EDS, IBM , Microsoft , Oracle, Fujitsu,
Aviva, and many others
 Built by professional managers with real experience
of skills management, not by theoreticians
 Non-profit organisation (no Government funding)
 Council of 30 users and service providers
MAKING THE ORGANISATION WORK BETTER
SFIA today (Version 4)
 Used by thousands of organisations
in over 100 countries
 Accredited Partners & Consultants
big consultancies (PA, Deloitte, IBM)
recruitment, salary survey services,
hundreds of trained consultants
 Adopted by professional bodies, IFIP, ITIL/itSMF
 Imitated by ECF 
 Updated every three years – users participate
 Available in English, Japanese, Chinese, Spanish
German and Italian scheduled for 2010
What is SFIA
SFIA defines 7 levels
Levels that really work
describes 86 professional skills
in 6 categories, across those levels
Skills defined by experienced managers
d
set strategy, inspire, mobilise
7
initiate/influence
6
ensure/advise
5
enable
d
1
•••••••••
4
apply
3
assist
2
follow
1
d
86
Context
example:
Analytical
Professional
skills
Behavioural
skills
Knowledge
example
Business analysis
Experience
example:
UML
Qualifications
Professional
profile
The Capability Management Cycle
and some typical problems
We don’t know our overall capability
We are compartmentalised, working differently
People are in silos
Know,
plan,
manage
How does our pay compare
with other organisations?
Reward
Wrong people at interview
Acquire
We don’t have the right skills
I don’t get interesting work
Do I get any training?
How do we develop people?
Do they learn useful things?
Develop
Deploy
Assess
I don’t agree with my manager’s assessment
How do you get promoted around here?
EXIT
Our best people leave
Why?
Organisations use SFIA to make these processes work better
Operate in 100 countries
174 000 employees
Turnover €40 billion
Business model:
Business Partnering, Innovation,
Services, Architecture & planning
RESULTS
 Skills development focussed on business need
 Standard Roles & Profiles
Aligned to Industry Best Practice (SFIA)
External Accreditation
 New skills defined
Business Partnering/Relationship Management
Strategic Vendor Management
Portfolio Management
 Key to aligning IT with the business
UK Government IT Profession
Quote for this Conference from the Cabinet Office ...
 “Central Govt spends £16 billion a year on IT
Huge improvement if people used more effectively
 Decided to base IT Profession on SFIA , because
Established, well known and open standard
No cost to employers
Supported by the SFIA Foundation which is not for profit
Simplicity and broad scope meet Government’s needs for a
framework that could be used in any Government organisation,
however large or small.
Provides all public sector IT
organisations with a common
language to describe the
skills and attributes required of
IT professionals”
All Government Departments
 Departments develop a consistent approach to identifying
skills and skills gaps
 Role profiling; design of organisation and teams
 Recruitment, both internal and external – job advertisements
conform to and use SFIA levels and descriptors
 Performance management and identification
 Talent management and workforce planning
 Sharing of people, ideas and best practice within and between
organisations right across the wider public sector
 Targetted training
Now widely used on Local Government:
London Borough of Camden saving
£2 million/year
 430 million e-mails every year
2000 every working minute
 200 million phone calls each year
 6 million people use the web site every month
Peak – 50,000 concurrent users
395,000 tax assessments in one day
 They collect money – £435 billion
 1300 IT Staff in >20 locations + 2000 contractors
 Standard Roles defined and assessed with SFIA
 Staff assessed against roles (on-line system)
Results
Better control of management – must use approved Role Profiles
Training plans – focussed on business need
Objective assessments – more objective, agreed
Recruitment – faster and better
Future skills needs – accurately identified
SFIA Established as part of their management system
European Central Bank
 Competence framework based on SFIA
86 skills cover ECB’s needs
 Use in appraisal, development, training plans
 Skills focus – managers invest more time
 Business strategy is skills-aware
skills impact of strategy is clear
clear targets for skills
 Basis for talent management
 Training plans = business need
 Colt Telecom
A leading European provider of business communications
 13-country 25,000 km network
metropolitan networks in 34 major European cities
with direct fibre connections
 420 permanent IT staff
 Wanted to improve development & motivation
career development
clearer roles and responsibilities
 Roles and development plans aligned with SFIA
Performance reviews every 6 months
High-potential development programme
Managers trained to use SFIA
 Skills correctly aligned across countries
 Careers and expectations – staff satisfaction
 Reduced resource costs
 Skills aligned to functional goals
 SFIA helped identify missing roles
 Provides basis for criteria-based interviewing
Professional development
The influence of SFIA
Training
Organisation
Educate
Recruit
Train
Professional
Body
IFIP
Qualify
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Student
IT Professional
Job
Descriptions
Procurement
Professional
Profiles
Employer
Process roles
Methods
SFIA & EQF look similar
but measure different things
 SFIA & EQF Levels 1-3 – similar
 EQF Level 8:
the most advanced and specialised skills
and techniques ... required to solve critical
problems in research and/or innovation
and to extend and redefine existing
knowledge or professional practice

knowledge at the most
advanced frontier of a field of
work or study and at the
interface between fields
demonstrate
substantial
innovation,
autonomy,
scholarly
“Highly
educated
– has atauthority,
least a Master’s
degree,
can make
very and
professional
integrity and sustained commitment to the development of
complex
decisions”
new ideas or processes at the forefront of work or study contexts
including
research
SFIA
Level
7
“Can be CIO (Chief Information Officer)”
SFIA and EQF
Professional
skills
Behavioural
skills
A tool for management
Knowledge
Experience
Qualifications
EQF
A tool for education
Information for managers
The right skilled people
in the right place
at the right time
www.sfia.org.uk
www.sfia.cl
Job Descriptions
Many people (91), many (but only 7 on this slide) job descriptions
Benefits manager (8)
person specification:
“what skills and knowledge are needed”
Business consultant (12)
Confusion !
Systems acceptance (7)
Requirements analyst (13)
Business unit liaison (8)
Information advisor (22)
Information specialist (21)
New Job descriptions every month
Costly bureaucracy to evaluate
“We still don’t know our capability”
Professional Profiles
91 people with related skills
7 job descriptions
One professional profile,
summarised at three levels
Business analyst
Benefits manager (8)
Business consultant (12)
Used for
Resource planning
Organisation
Recruitment
Pay policies ...
Systems acceptance (7)
3 Levels:
Requirements analyst (13)
BA1 - Business consultant
Business unit liaison (8)
BA2 - Business analyst
Information advisor (22)
BA3 - Information analyst
Information specialist (21)
Job description says:
“This job needs a BA3 with
experience of ...”
Defining a category of capability, not a job.
We now know we have ...
20 BA1s, 28 BA2s and 43 BA3s
Six categories
and 20 subcategories
Strategy & planning
Development
Business change
Service provision
Procurement & management support
Ancillary skills
This is really the last slide
www.sfia.org.uk
www.sfia.cl