Knowledge management through competency models
The Matrix, a film by the Wachowski brothers, is full of meanings: philosophical, religious and cultural, and sometimes conspiracy theories are found in it. There is another meaning - the team. The team has a experienced team leader and a young professional who needs to be quickly trained, put into the team and sent to carry out the task. Yes, there is a specificity with leather cloaks and sunglasses in the room, but in the rest of the movie about teamwork and knowledge.
Using the example of “The Matrix”, I’ll tell you why you need to manage knowledge in a team, how to enter management into a workflow, what “competence” and “competency models” are, how to evaluate expertise and transfer experience. And I'll take a look at the cases: leaving a valuable employee, I want to receive more, knowledge management in the development process.
')
Timlids worry about different issues. How to build a super team faster and better? It seems that there are budgets and projects, but there are no people or they are slowly learning. How not to lose valuable knowledge? People sometimes leave or management comes and says: “We need to reduce 10% of employees. But so that nothing breaks! ” Will there be a Knowledgepartf afterparty? All these questions are answered by one discipline - knowledge management.
Surely you have the experience, how to grow a team or how to fire people, but you don’t have any experience how to organize parties after conferences. You ask, what is the similarity? In the mindfulness of action.
I more intelligently approached the question of how to work with people, after the words HR:
- You need seniors-developers, but let's hire hiring juniors, and will you grow seniors yourself?
How much time will it take to make a gentleman from a junior? 2 years, 5 years, 25? And how much - to develop the conference site KnowledgeConf ? Probably no more than a couple of months. It turns out that we, the developers, are able to evaluate features: we own the practice of decomposing software systems. And how to decompose people do not know.
People can also be decomposed . Each of us can be digitized and decomposed into “atoms” of knowledge and skills. This is easily demonstrated by the example of the story from The Matrix, a film that is already 20 years old.
For those who have not watched or already forgotten, a short non-canonical presentation of the plot. Meet the heroes.
The main character is Morpheus. This guy owned different types of martial arts and offered people pills.
Strange woman Pythia, she has cookies, and she is an oracle. But now in Russia, the fashion for import substitution, therefore - the prophetess. Pythia was famous for answering questions with ambiguous phrases.
Two bouncers and team members - Neo and Trinity.
One day, Morpheus got caught with pills and dragged him to his headquarters by the “secret police agent” Smith with the call sign “Elf”. Trinity and Neo began to pull Morpheus out of the bar. They did not understand how to do this, and therefore decided to ask an intelligent person. Came to Pythia:
NT: - How do we get Morpheus?
P: - And what do you have for this, what can you do?
To solve a problem, we need certain skills or competencies - the ability to solve a certain class of problems . What competencies does a team need in order to achieve its goals?
Each of us has a large number of competencies, each of which is a combination of three components.
The first two components are our skills or Hard Skills . We know and are able to do something - one knows how to get from St. Petersburg to Moscow, the other knows why the hatches are round. There are also practical skills, such as quick typing or the ability to use a clicker. Each of us has character traits - this is Soft Skills . Together, these are competencies. Neo and Trinity have their own competencies: Neo knew how to fly, and Trinity shot well.
Consider the example of developers, of which consists of a competency model.
Practices and tools. To program, you need to know at least one programming language, the principles of building complex systems, to be able to test. We also know how to use different development tools - version control systems, IDE, are familiar with management practices - Scrum or Kanban.
Staff and work with him . These are competencies related to the formation of a team and work in it, with feedback and motivation of employees.
Subject area This knowledge and skills in a particular subject area. Everyone has their own, big or small: fintech, retail, blockchain or education, etc.
Let's go back to the "Matrix". All the competencies that are in the team of Neo and Trinity answer three simple questions: what we do, how we do and who does . When Pythia told Neo and Trinity about it, they reasonably remarked: "It's a cool story, but we absolutely do not understand how to build a model of our competencies."
If you want to build a competency model, then to use it in your work - start by thinking about what you are doing.
The competencies that Neo and Trinity needed to free Morpheus included shooting skills, tricks, jumping, beating guards with various objects. Then they needed to understand where to go - the skill of orientation in the building and using the elevator. By the end, piloting a helicopter, shooting a machine gun and using a rope came in handy. Step by step, Neo and Trinity identified the necessary skills and built a competency model.
But are models only enough to use it in knowledge management? Of course not. By itself, the list of necessary skills is a useless topic. Even in the summary.
To understand how to manage knowledge better, you need to understand the level of this knowledge in your team .
To decide what everyone will do during the rescue operation, Neo and Trinity need to understand who has the best skills.
Any system will be suitable for evaluation . Measure even in pink elephants, if only the system was one. If the team of some employees you estimate in boas, and others in parrots, it will be difficult for you to compare them with each other. Even with the x38 coefficient.
The simplest system familiar to us from school is the estimates from 0 to 5. Zero means complete zero - what else can it mean? Five - a person can teach something. For example, I can teach you how to build competency models - I have five. There are other stages between these values: I've been at conferences, read a book, often practice.
There may be other rating systems. You may well choose a simpler one.
There are only 4 options, it is difficult to get confused.
You can complicate. Measure depth and width, as we do in Cloveri.
Decided on the scale? But how to assess the level of competence that you own or your team?
Self-esteem . The easiest way came up with Neo. He said: “I know kung-fu!”, And many believed - once said, it means, he knows - the chosen one after all.
The method of self-assessment works, but there are nuances. The employee can be asked to assess how well he or she has one or another skill. But as soon as the impact of this assessment on something monetary appears, the level of knowledge for some reason rises. Out! And all the experts. Therefore, as soon as money appears near the assessment, immediately remove the self-esteem.
The second nuance is the Dunning-Kruger effect .
Interview with experts. We are called in the company to assess the level of employees in order to further develop development plans. Employees fill in self-questionnaires according to their competencies , we look at them: “It's great, another expert, now let's talk”. But when talking, a person quickly ceases to look like an expert. Most often, such a story happens with the juna, sometimes with the middles. Only at a certain level of specialist development can one rely confidently on self-esteem.
When Neo said he knew kung-fu, Morpheus offered to check whose kung-fu is steeper in practice. It became immediately clear - Neo only in the words of Bruce Lee or in deed.
Practice is the most difficult way. Determining the level of competence through practical cases is more difficult and longer than the interview. For example, I participated in the “Leaders of Russia” competition and in total we were tested for 5 days to determine the level of 10 competencies.
Developing practical case studies is expensive, and therefore often limited to the first two methods: self-assessment and interviews with experts . These may be external experts, or they may be from your own team. After all, each member of the team is an expert in something.
So, when Neo and Trinity were preparing to save Morpheus, they first figured out what competencies were needed to carry out the work process. Then they appreciated each other and decided that Neo would shoot. Trinity will first help him, but he will be led further by a helicopter, since Neo is not on friendly terms with helicopters.
That's how competent knowledge management led Neo and Trinity to victory, and they saved Morpheus.
The story of the men in glasses and leather pants is interesting, but where is the design? Let us turn to the cases of real-life competency models built from your processes.
Anyone who turns to HR for a new employee hears the question: “Who do you need?”. For a quick response, we take the job description of the previous person and send to look for the same. Is it right to do so? Not.
The task of the head - to reduce the number of bottlenecks in the team . The less competences that only one person owns, the better the team. Fewer bottlenecks = greater team throughput = work goes faster. Therefore, when searching for a person, use the competency matrix.
So you will increase the bandwidth of your team.
The main question that needs to be answered when creating a new vacancy is: “Who do we really need?” The obvious answer is not always the right one. When we say that we have performance problems with the system, is it necessary to take an architect for the solution? No, sometimes it’s enough to buy and set up a piece of hardware. And these are completely different skills.
How to quickly adapt the specialists who recently came to the team and while on probation? Well, when there is a knowledge base, and when it is relevant - generally excellent. But there is a nuance. It is connected with the fact that a person learns in three ways.
Practice? Throw a man immediately into battle? But he alone can not pull out. Therefore, we usually give him a mentor. Sometimes it doesn't work:
- I have a lot of my affairs, but I still have this load hung. You are a team leader, you are paid for it, you work with him!
Therefore, the option that we use when building a team development plan is a lot of different mentors for different skills . An expert in prototyping pulls in front-enddeender in creating prototypes, an expert in testing teaches how to write tests, or at least shows what he usually does, with the help of some tools and checklists.
It works better also because most of the problems in companies are related to communications. If you immediately teach a person to communicate a lot and exchange information, then perhaps there will be no problems with communications in the company. Therefore, the more people involved in human adaptation, the better.
- Where to find time to study? There is no time to work!
When you use competency models, it is easier for you to understand how to learn directly in the process. What a practical task to give a person to gain knowledge.
Many of you know about the Eisenhower matrix , which says that you can delegate and what to do yourself. Here is its counterpart for knowledge management.
When you want to constantly cultivate knowledge in a team, do it at least sometimes in pairs - put people to do one thing at the same time . Even if it is urgent and important, let the novice do it together with the expert - at least write down why the expert solves this problem in this way, let him ask what is not clear - why this time the server rebooted, and the previous one did not rebut.
In every square of the matrix there is always an occupation for the second person. A newcomer can almost always do everything on his own, but sometimes he needs to be watched over and sometimes actively helped.
This is a way to teach people when there is no time to learn, and there is only time to work. Attract employees to the things that they are capable of at the moment, and develop in the process.
An employee comes to each team leader once and asks a question: “ How do I get more?” And I have to urgently think up what the employee needs to do so that in three months he will be paid a salary.
With the competency matrix, the answers are in your pocket. We recall that the team needs to duplicate and smear knowledge for different people as much as possible. If we understand where the problem is in the team, of course, the first task for the questioner is to improve this area.
As soon as you use the competence approach, the more meaningful direction of employee development begins immediately. With the competence matrix there is always an answer to the question of how to get more.
But be careful. A common mistake that we see when we advise a company is to set the direction of movement without inquiring about the person’s desire to go there. Is there motivation? Does he want to develop in load testing or engage in test automation?
The important moment when we are talking about the development of a person is to understand his motivation : what he wants to learn, what he is interested in. If a person is not interested, knowledge will not enter. Our brain is so arranged that it is very afraid of change. Changes are expensive, painful and need to spend energy . The brain wants to survive, so it is trying in any way to escape from new knowledge. Go for lunch or smoke. Or play. Or read social networks. Yes, yes, to do what we usually do when we need to learn something.
If there is no motivation, it is useless to teach. Therefore, it is better to learn a little, but what is interesting. When the brain is interested, he does not mind sharing energy for the sake of new knowledge.
What to do with the knowledge of employees who leave? There are cases when a person leaves the company. Often, after he signed the application and slammed the door, it turns out that he was doing something important, but they forgot about it. This is problem.
When you have a competency matrix, you understand where the bottlenecks are, who you have is the only person who can shoot or drive a helicopter. As a team leader, you must solve problems before they come : if you have only one person who can drive a helicopter, teach someone else that.
Duplicate people before they leave or they get hit by a bus. Most importantly, do not forget that you need to duplicate yourself. Good team leader who can leave, and the team will continue to work.
And finally.
There are tools that allow more meaningful management of the organization. One of them is a management model based on the digitization of the process and people for more meaningful actions by managers. Based on this model, we better hire, develop and manage people, create products and services.
Apply competency models, be more meaningful managers.
Using the example of “The Matrix”, I’ll tell you why you need to manage knowledge in a team, how to enter management into a workflow, what “competence” and “competency models” are, how to evaluate expertise and transfer experience. And I'll take a look at the cases: leaving a valuable employee, I want to receive more, knowledge management in the development process.
')
Timlids worry about different issues. How to build a super team faster and better? It seems that there are budgets and projects, but there are no people or they are slowly learning. How not to lose valuable knowledge? People sometimes leave or management comes and says: “We need to reduce 10% of employees. But so that nothing breaks! ” Will there be a Knowledgepartf afterparty? All these questions are answered by one discipline - knowledge management.
Knowledge management is the key to answers
Surely you have the experience, how to grow a team or how to fire people, but you don’t have any experience how to organize parties after conferences. You ask, what is the similarity? In the mindfulness of action.
I more intelligently approached the question of how to work with people, after the words HR:
- You need seniors-developers, but let's hire hiring juniors, and will you grow seniors yourself?
How much time will it take to make a gentleman from a junior? 2 years, 5 years, 25? And how much - to develop the conference site KnowledgeConf ? Probably no more than a couple of months. It turns out that we, the developers, are able to evaluate features: we own the practice of decomposing software systems. And how to decompose people do not know.
People can also be decomposed . Each of us can be digitized and decomposed into “atoms” of knowledge and skills. This is easily demonstrated by the example of the story from The Matrix, a film that is already 20 years old.
Welcome to the Matrix
For those who have not watched or already forgotten, a short non-canonical presentation of the plot. Meet the heroes.
The main character is Morpheus. This guy owned different types of martial arts and offered people pills.
Strange woman Pythia, she has cookies, and she is an oracle. But now in Russia, the fashion for import substitution, therefore - the prophetess. Pythia was famous for answering questions with ambiguous phrases.
Two bouncers and team members - Neo and Trinity.
One day, Morpheus got caught with pills and dragged him to his headquarters by the “secret police agent” Smith with the call sign “Elf”. Trinity and Neo began to pull Morpheus out of the bar. They did not understand how to do this, and therefore decided to ask an intelligent person. Came to Pythia:
NT: - How do we get Morpheus?
P: - And what do you have for this, what can you do?
To solve a problem, we need certain skills or competencies - the ability to solve a certain class of problems . What competencies does a team need in order to achieve its goals?
Competence
Each of us has a large number of competencies, each of which is a combination of three components.
Competence is knowledge, skills and character.
The first two components are our skills or Hard Skills . We know and are able to do something - one knows how to get from St. Petersburg to Moscow, the other knows why the hatches are round. There are also practical skills, such as quick typing or the ability to use a clicker. Each of us has character traits - this is Soft Skills . Together, these are competencies. Neo and Trinity have their own competencies: Neo knew how to fly, and Trinity shot well.
A set of competencies allows you to act more intelligently, competently and successfully.
Competency model
Consider the example of developers, of which consists of a competency model.
Practices and tools. To program, you need to know at least one programming language, the principles of building complex systems, to be able to test. We also know how to use different development tools - version control systems, IDE, are familiar with management practices - Scrum or Kanban.
Staff and work with him . These are competencies related to the formation of a team and work in it, with feedback and motivation of employees.
Subject area This knowledge and skills in a particular subject area. Everyone has their own, big or small: fintech, retail, blockchain or education, etc.
Let's go back to the "Matrix". All the competencies that are in the team of Neo and Trinity answer three simple questions: what we do, how we do and who does . When Pythia told Neo and Trinity about it, they reasonably remarked: "It's a cool story, but we absolutely do not understand how to build a model of our competencies."
How to build a competency model
If you want to build a competency model, then to use it in your work - start by thinking about what you are doing.
Create a model from processes. Step by step decompose what skills, abilities and knowledge are needed to complete the next stage of your work.
What you need to successfully complete the process
The competencies that Neo and Trinity needed to free Morpheus included shooting skills, tricks, jumping, beating guards with various objects. Then they needed to understand where to go - the skill of orientation in the building and using the elevator. By the end, piloting a helicopter, shooting a machine gun and using a rope came in handy. Step by step, Neo and Trinity identified the necessary skills and built a competency model.
All activities are decomposed into knowledge and skills that are needed to solve a specific task.
But are models only enough to use it in knowledge management? Of course not. By itself, the list of necessary skills is a useless topic. Even in the summary.
To understand how to manage knowledge better, you need to understand the level of this knowledge in your team .
Assessment of knowledge
To decide what everyone will do during the rescue operation, Neo and Trinity need to understand who has the best skills.
Any system will be suitable for evaluation . Measure even in pink elephants, if only the system was one. If the team of some employees you estimate in boas, and others in parrots, it will be difficult for you to compare them with each other. Even with the x38 coefficient.
Come up with a single evaluation system.
The simplest system familiar to us from school is the estimates from 0 to 5. Zero means complete zero - what else can it mean? Five - a person can teach something. For example, I can teach you how to build competency models - I have five. There are other stages between these values: I've been at conferences, read a book, often practice.
There may be other rating systems. You may well choose a simpler one.
There are only 4 options, it is difficult to get confused.
- No knowledge, no practice - this is not our man, he is unlikely to share knowledge.
- There is knowledge and practice - may well share knowledge. We take!
- Two intermediate points - it is necessary to think where to apply the person.
You can complicate. Measure depth and width, as we do in Cloveri.
Decided on the scale? But how to assess the level of competence that you own or your team?
Common assessment methods
Self-esteem . The easiest way came up with Neo. He said: “I know kung-fu!”, And many believed - once said, it means, he knows - the chosen one after all.
The method of self-assessment works, but there are nuances. The employee can be asked to assess how well he or she has one or another skill. But as soon as the impact of this assessment on something monetary appears, the level of knowledge for some reason rises. Out! And all the experts. Therefore, as soon as money appears near the assessment, immediately remove the self-esteem.
The second nuance is the Dunning-Kruger effect .
Incompetent do not understand their incompetence because of their incompetence.
Interview with experts. We are called in the company to assess the level of employees in order to further develop development plans. Employees fill in self-questionnaires according to their competencies , we look at them: “It's great, another expert, now let's talk”. But when talking, a person quickly ceases to look like an expert. Most often, such a story happens with the juna, sometimes with the middles. Only at a certain level of specialist development can one rely confidently on self-esteem.
When Neo said he knew kung-fu, Morpheus offered to check whose kung-fu is steeper in practice. It became immediately clear - Neo only in the words of Bruce Lee or in deed.
Practice is the most difficult way. Determining the level of competence through practical cases is more difficult and longer than the interview. For example, I participated in the “Leaders of Russia” competition and in total we were tested for 5 days to determine the level of 10 competencies.
Developing practical case studies is expensive, and therefore often limited to the first two methods: self-assessment and interviews with experts . These may be external experts, or they may be from your own team. After all, each member of the team is an expert in something.
Competency matrix
So, when Neo and Trinity were preparing to save Morpheus, they first figured out what competencies were needed to carry out the work process. Then they appreciated each other and decided that Neo would shoot. Trinity will first help him, but he will be led further by a helicopter, since Neo is not on friendly terms with helicopters.
The model along with the assessments give us a competency matrix.
That's how competent knowledge management led Neo and Trinity to victory, and they saved Morpheus.
How to manage with models
The story of the men in glasses and leather pants is interesting, but where is the design? Let us turn to the cases of real-life competency models built from your processes.
Recruitment
Anyone who turns to HR for a new employee hears the question: “Who do you need?”. For a quick response, we take the job description of the previous person and send to look for the same. Is it right to do so? Not.
The task of the head - to reduce the number of bottlenecks in the team . The less competences that only one person owns, the better the team. Fewer bottlenecks = greater team throughput = work goes faster. Therefore, when searching for a person, use the competency matrix.
The main criterion for the selection - what skills your team needs you close this person.
So you will increase the bandwidth of your team.
The main question that needs to be answered when creating a new vacancy is: “Who do we really need?” The obvious answer is not always the right one. When we say that we have performance problems with the system, is it necessary to take an architect for the solution? No, sometimes it’s enough to buy and set up a piece of hardware. And these are completely different skills.
Adaptation
How to quickly adapt the specialists who recently came to the team and while on probation? Well, when there is a knowledge base, and when it is relevant - generally excellent. But there is a nuance. It is connected with the fact that a person learns in three ways.
- Through the theory - reads books, articles on Habré, goes to conferences.
- Through observation . Initially, we are herd animals - the first monkey took a stick, struck it a second, and the third organized a course "Seven effective ways to own a stick." Therefore, watching someone is a familiar way of learning.
- Through practice. Scientists who study cognitive systems say that the first method is good, the second is remarkable, but the most effective is through practice. Without practice, adaptation is slower.
Practice? Throw a man immediately into battle? But he alone can not pull out. Therefore, we usually give him a mentor. Sometimes it doesn't work:
- I have a lot of my affairs, but I still have this load hung. You are a team leader, you are paid for it, you work with him!
Therefore, the option that we use when building a team development plan is a lot of different mentors for different skills . An expert in prototyping pulls in front-enddeender in creating prototypes, an expert in testing teaches how to write tests, or at least shows what he usually does, with the help of some tools and checklists.
Micro-training and mentoring by a large number of specialists work better than one mentor.
It works better also because most of the problems in companies are related to communications. If you immediately teach a person to communicate a lot and exchange information, then perhaps there will be no problems with communications in the company. Therefore, the more people involved in human adaptation, the better.
Development
- Where to find time to study? There is no time to work!
When you use competency models, it is easier for you to understand how to learn directly in the process. What a practical task to give a person to gain knowledge.
Many of you know about the Eisenhower matrix , which says that you can delegate and what to do yourself. Here is its counterpart for knowledge management.
When you want to constantly cultivate knowledge in a team, do it at least sometimes in pairs - put people to do one thing at the same time . Even if it is urgent and important, let the novice do it together with the expert - at least write down why the expert solves this problem in this way, let him ask what is not clear - why this time the server rebooted, and the previous one did not rebut.
In every square of the matrix there is always an occupation for the second person. A newcomer can almost always do everything on his own, but sometimes he needs to be watched over and sometimes actively helped.
This is a way to teach people when there is no time to learn, and there is only time to work. Attract employees to the things that they are capable of at the moment, and develop in the process.
Career
An employee comes to each team leader once and asks a question: “ How do I get more?” And I have to urgently think up what the employee needs to do so that in three months he will be paid a salary.
With the competency matrix, the answers are in your pocket. We recall that the team needs to duplicate and smear knowledge for different people as much as possible. If we understand where the problem is in the team, of course, the first task for the questioner is to improve this area.
As soon as you use the competence approach, the more meaningful direction of employee development begins immediately. With the competence matrix there is always an answer to the question of how to get more.
To get more - develop the competencies needed by the team.
But be careful. A common mistake that we see when we advise a company is to set the direction of movement without inquiring about the person’s desire to go there. Is there motivation? Does he want to develop in load testing or engage in test automation?
The important moment when we are talking about the development of a person is to understand his motivation : what he wants to learn, what he is interested in. If a person is not interested, knowledge will not enter. Our brain is so arranged that it is very afraid of change. Changes are expensive, painful and need to spend energy . The brain wants to survive, so it is trying in any way to escape from new knowledge. Go for lunch or smoke. Or play. Or read social networks. Yes, yes, to do what we usually do when we need to learn something.
If there is no motivation, it is useless to teach. Therefore, it is better to learn a little, but what is interesting. When the brain is interested, he does not mind sharing energy for the sake of new knowledge.
Care
What to do with the knowledge of employees who leave? There are cases when a person leaves the company. Often, after he signed the application and slammed the door, it turns out that he was doing something important, but they forgot about it. This is problem.
When you have a competency matrix, you understand where the bottlenecks are, who you have is the only person who can shoot or drive a helicopter. As a team leader, you must solve problems before they come : if you have only one person who can drive a helicopter, teach someone else that.
Duplicate people before they leave or they get hit by a bus. Most importantly, do not forget that you need to duplicate yourself. Good team leader who can leave, and the team will continue to work.
And finally.
What we do not understand scares us. What scares us, we try not to do in every way.
There are tools that allow more meaningful management of the organization. One of them is a management model based on the digitization of the process and people for more meaningful actions by managers. Based on this model, we better hire, develop and manage people, create products and services.
Apply competency models, be more meaningful managers.
If you are interested in the topic of the article, and you feel the need for structured knowledge management in the company, I invite you on April 26 to KnowledgeConf - the first conference in Russia about knowledge management in IT. We have collected many important topics in the program : onboarding newbies, working with knowledge bases, engaging employees in knowledge sharing and much more. Come for a working experience solving everyday problems.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/447298/
All Articles