My experiments with team’s skill enhancement and learning

Pralabh VermaMarch 24, 2009

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How do we build a

team of all-

rounders who can

work on any kind of

business projects

that come our way

How do we

objectively measure

the current

proficiency levels

and required

improvements

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THIS EXPERIMENT STARTED WITH TWO CHALLENGES

It started with two questions …

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Can current skill

base be measured

like Air Force

measures for its

pilots (number of

hours done by type

of flight)?

How can we know in

unequivocal terms

how proficient our

skill base is?

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WHICH LEAD TO TWO QUESTIONS…

Targeted research led to understanding of “skill inventory system”

• Skill inventory management: Skills management is the practice of understanding, developing and deploying people and their skills

• Relevance to business: In business research industry, it can be used for strategic purposes like new business development and broad basing the skills.

New Skills = New business or vice versa

Domain specific analyst Generalist

• Skill Inventory process has 3 distinct steps (see accompanying illustration)

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SKILL INVENTORY

MANAGEMENT PROCESS

Identify and define skills

key to business unit

Determine width and

depth of skill deployment

Address skill gaps (Recruit, train, deploy)

Three steps to create “Skill Inventory System”

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This led to preparation of a road-map for creating learning and development tools based on skill inventory and evaluation system

Objective:

What is the

current

status and

where we

want to be in

near future

Forecast:

What skills

will we

need to get

there

Strategic

Evaluation:

What skills

are in-house

and which

should be

inventoried,

What skills will

we need in

over next 3

years

L

Definition:

What defines

these skills

and what

determines

proficiency

levels

Inventory:

How proficient

are our

analysts in

the

established

and the

needed skills

What education and learning will

the organization offer, to whom and

how

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Demonstrate the newly

acquired skills for business

development

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Continuous

Pre

para

tory

Phase

O F E D I

Overall, the objective was to create a proficient, progressively learning team by doing following...

• Knowing our current skill base and width and depth of already deployed skills

• Identifying ways to broaden the skill base among all the team members

• Identifying learning needs and creating appropriate learning forums

• Identifying skills that can be deployed to drive new business

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Skill

bas

e

Time

Current Business

Future Business

Current Future

Cu

rren

tR

eq

uir

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in

futu

re

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Strategic intent was to broad base skills, remove growth blockers and demonstrate capability to attract new business

Strategic intent

Remove Growth Blockers

• Acquire through recruitment

• Redeploy creatively to feed

into future business

• Learning and development

Skills

Base

Cu

rre

nt

Ne

w

Strategic direction of Business Current Future

Broad Base Skills

• Grow in both "width" and

"depth" of skill sets

• Build efficiency

Demonstrate Capability

• Create business

development opportunities

with unutilized skills

• Communicate and

demonstrate this capability

Blind Spot

• Dependent on strategic

intent and future business/

market environment

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In business research outsourcing industry, an analyst’s work may cover four key performance areas requiring ~100+ skills* for a specific domain

• Quality control (QC) of content and research process

• Writing skills

• MS office skills

• Secondary research

• Primary market research

• Basic domain specific analysis

• Deep dive domain specific analysis

• Strategic analysis

Analytical ability (30%)

Research Skill (35%)

Quality Assurance

(20%)

Content Creation

(25%)

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KPI#

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Core to Business

Hygiene

Note: *Measured from a sample of two project teams having up to 5 analysts each. This is assumed to be consistent for all analysts in a specific domain

vertical; Skills for different domains may be different ; #KPI – Key performance indicators; percentage figures indicate weight of each KPI

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A skill is considered “deployed” by the business, if it is used in any project for a specified period

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Skill 1

Skill 2

Skill 3

Skill 4

Skill 5

Skill 6

Skill 7

Depth per skill per person

Analyst 1Width / Analyst

Unutilized

skill base

Total Hours / Total skills

Analyst 2Width / Analyst

Analyst 3Width / Analyst

Analyst 4Width / Analyst

Analyst 5 Width / Analyst

Analyst 6Width / Analyst

Illustrative skill utilization in a team of analysts in a specified period

Skill Deployment is dependent on…

Commissioned projects

in a specified period1

An analyst’s proficiency 2

An analyst’s availability 2

Deployed Not Deployed

Maximum possible width of skill base

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Legend

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Fra

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Team Leader 3

Team Leader 2

Skill 10

Skill 9

Skill 8

Skill 7

Skill 6

Skill 5

Skill 4

Skill 3

Skill 2

Skill 1

Overall Average

Team Leader 1

Self scoreFor one Analyst

2 2 2 2 2

2 3 3 3 3

3 33 32

1 1 12

3 2

1

32 2

1

3

212 2

3 3 3 3

An analyst’s proficiency is measured by a proficiency rating scale; An average of “self score” and “manager’s score” for a six months cycle

101 2 3Beginner – needs hand holding and

training

Aware – needs opportunity and

experienceProficient – expert and

efficient

If the skill is considered deployed and an analyst does not work on it in a specified period, then it will bring down average proficiency score for entire team

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fin

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Fra

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rk

Build

confidence

Coaching on

development

plan +

opportunity to

work

Note: Rating Scale

Project manager’s

Intervention

Create

marketing

tools (e.g.

white papers)

using idle

capacity

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A pilot exercise was done to identify in-house skill base and measuring No. of hours per skill per person for two project teams over 6 months

• For four KPIs for an analyst there are ~100 skills that can be used

Identify relevant in-house skill base

• Capture data for hours spent by two project teams in last 6months

• Prepared proficiency rating

Pilot test the process and framework

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Phase I Phase II

What was done in the pilot

Results

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Skills related to core KPIs, analytical & research skills have <100% utilization, the gap is larger for key skills such as “strategic analysis” & “market research”

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0

66

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

Basic-M

edical

Med

ico-M

arketing

Strategic An

alysis

Deployed Not deployed

9 8

8

0 0

5

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

Pro

peritary D

B

Web

search

Market research

Deployed Not deployed

Analytical Skills - 73% Deployment* Research Skills – 83% Deployment*

Note: *A skill is considered deployed if it is used in any project for last six month by the team; Proprietary DB – databases subscribed by the company

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Depth per person per skill has large variability indicating narrow work flow and narrower skill base

45

30

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4

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10 10

4

An

alytical ability

Re(search

)

Co

nten

t Creatio

n

QC

Total No of skillsWidth (Avg No of skills used)

2616

39

2119

0

26

9

3727

158

33

An

alytical ability

Re(search

)

Co

nten

t Creatio

n

QC

Depth (Avg No of hrs per skill)

Min

Max

Width of skill deployment per Analyst Depth per skill per person (Hours)

Note: QC – Quality Control

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Narrow work flow leads to low overall proficiency levels for the “group” of analysts

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Range 1.1 – 2.5 0.5 – 1.8 0.7 – 1.7 0.8 – 2.0 1.8 – 2.2 1.5 – 2.4 0.3 – 2.0 1.0 – 2.2

Skill-1

3

2

1

1.9

Skill-2 Skill-3 Overall

Analytical Skills

Skill-1

1.7

Skill-2 Skill-3 Overall

Research Skills

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2

1

1.3 1.2 1.5 1.9 1.3 1.7

Be

gin

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ware

Pro

ficie

nt

Average self scores for a “group” of skills for a team of analysts - If the skill is considered deployed and an analyst does not work on it in last six months, then it will bring down average proficiency score for entire team

Note: DB search – Database subscribed by the company

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To institutionalise the learnings, we needed to scale up the initiative

• For four KPIs for an analyst there are ~100+ skills that can be used

Identify relevant in-house skill base

• Captured data for hours spent by two project teams in last 6months

• Prepared proficiency rating

Pilot to test idea and hypothesize

• Expand understanding

• Create solutions

• Built ownership with stakeholders

Institutionalise

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Phase I Phase II Phase III

What was done in the pilot What is proposed

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Next steps – expand the skill inventory quantification to all analysts

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What Skills

• Skills that are current deployed or in use by a particular vertical

• Skills that are used in last 6 months

• Define skills on proficiency levels

For Whom

• Analyst with generalist roles

• Specialists teams in a domain should be excluded

How

• Using the prescribed format of recording hours spent on each project

• Project manager / analyst estimate of hours per skill for each project done in last 6 months

• Ratification by managers / team leadersF

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Next steps – Identify learning needs by analysing gaps in “Self Score” and average “Manager/Team Leader Score”

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Skill-1

3

2

1

Skill-2 Skill-3 Skill-4

Research Skills (self score)

Skill-1 Skill-2 Skill-3 Skill-4

Research Skills (Mgr/TL Avg*)

3

2

1MeanMedianMode

Gaps

Note: *Average score of all the team leaders and managers with whom an analyst has worked with in last 6 months

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Next steps – Build portfolio of learning forums, led by management team, to build a learning organization

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In-Class training

•List out in-class training topics for “new-to-company*” skills and “new employee*” skills

•Training manager to compile, record and maintain the inventory and progress reports

Follow through coaching

•Quarterly update of manager’s follow-through coaching to improve proficiency

•Incorporate “Buddying”/ “professional development advisory” system in work allocation process for every project. Team leaders should be in-charge of PDAs and Buddies should guide on need basis

Continuous workshops

•Workshops to increase experience on identified learning needs

Note: *New to Company – Skills that Company has not deployed in the business; “new to employee” skills are skills currently deployed by Company but

not used by the employee in last six months

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Next steps – Be mindful of key success factors

Ensure that employees use metrics as a tool for professional

development, not as performance evaluation tool and evaluating

one team against other

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1 Ownership by employees

2Organizational control on

people development

3Use the framework for

professional development

Employees have to adopt the program as their own, that is,

employees need to take control of their own professional

development

Supervisors have to surrender some control over employee

development, which will be transferred to training/ HR

Senior management buy-in on “skill inventory system/ processes”

and prioritisation for “new-to-business” skills is key for success4

Senior Management’s

Buy-in