Mapping roles to goals is critical to performance
Many of us have an ambitious set of goals for our organizations in 2022. We will not be able to achieve these goals without a plan. Many of these plans will be focused on process and metrics. Planning will be organized around the processes used to achieve the goals and the metrics used to measure progress. Is this enough?
Experience suggests it is not.
Learn more about Ibbaka Skill Gap and Role Coverage
What is the missing link that prevents us from achieving our goals? One place to look is the skills of our people and how they are being applied. At the end of the day, it is not a process that achieves a goal. The process is dependent on the people executing it. The missing link in strategic execution is the capabilities of the people.
Skill coverage analysis helps you align people with their roles and skills to achieve goals.
How can we make the link between people, skills and goals concrete and actionable?
They key is to map people to their skills and roles and then to align both with goals. Moving back and forth between skills, roles and goals gives a holistic view of what is required to actually achieve a goal. Let’s take a concrete example.
At Ibbaka, one of our goals for 2022 is to simplify our processes and to shorten time to value.
This goal engages several different roles:
Proposal Writers
Consultants
Data Analysts
Service Designers
Value Analysts
Proposal writers need to make proposals based on the service design with a focus on shortening time to value.
Consultants need to be able to execute on the services designed and to keep focused on providing value as quickly as possible. They need to have a ‘value mindset’ to complement a ‘growth mindset.’
Data Analysts also need to understand the design of the services and have the many skills needed to execute.
Service Designers play a key role here. It is one of the key areas of competency we are developing at Ibbaka. There are a number of roles that require service design skills and service design is emerging as a role in its own right.
Value Analysts are another key role at Ibbaka. The value analyst role is to build value models (quantitative models of economic, emotional and community value) and define value paths. Defining value paths is also an important part of Ibbaka’s approach to service design so value path design is an important connecting skill for these roles.
Why focus on roles in skill management?
We have found roles to be the best way to connect goals and skills to people. The reason is that people often think of their work , and more than just work, in terms of the roles they play. Roles come in different flavors:
Job roles, think of a job as a bundle of roles
Team roles, the roles you play on a team
Ad-hoc roles, the things you are doing ‘off the side of your desk’
Community roles, roles you play outside of work
All of these different roles can be important to goal achievement. So the next steps are to know …
Who currently has these roles
What skills are associated with the roles
Who could fill the roles
Where there are skill gaps
Where there are role gaps (not enough people with the required skills to fill the roles
Once one has insight into these five things one can develop a plan to make sure that people are aligned on the skills and roles needed to achieve their goals.
Performance needs the direction that goals provide. Execution relies on having people with the right skills in the critical roles.
More posts on Role Coverage and Skill Gap Analysis
How should your organization measure role coverage and skill gaps?
Why Role Coverage and Skill Gap Analysis is Mission Critical
How is your organization collecting and using data about skill gaps?
Mapping roles to goals is critical to performance (this post)
How to Understand Skill Coverage for Key Roles in Your Organization - Ibbaka Demo
Ibbaka posts on competency models and competency frameworks
Mapping roles to skills is critical to performance (this post)
From user experience to competency model design - Margherita Bacigalupo and EntreComp
Competency framework designers on competency framework design: The chunkers and the slice and dicers
Competency framework designers on competency framework design: Victoria Pazukha
Design research - How do people approach the design of skill and competency models?
The Skills for Career Mobility - Interview with Dennis Green
Lessons Learned Launching and Scaling Capability Management Programs
Talent Transformation - A Conversation with Eric Shepherd, Martin Belton and Steven Forth
Individual - Team - Organizational use cases for skill and competency management
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
Integrating Skills and Competencies in the Talent Management Ecosystem
Organizational values and competency models – survey results