The competence portfolio:Reflection for organisational

renewal

Samantha Slade

Percolab.com

October 17, 2007

ePortfolio 2007, Maastricht

Portfolios can help document and develop one’s

competences and can be a valuable and empowering exercise for an

individual.Photo, Kris Krüg, Flickr

The same is true for a team

Foundphotoslj, flickr

Foundphotoslj, flickr

and also for an organisation

Photo, Jyri Engestrom, Flickr

The reflective exercise inherent in a portfolio process is useful for organisations to collectively take stock of how they developed over time and to strategically move forward.

Photo: Melanie b, Flickr

Here is our experience of accompanying an artist-run print studio in Quebec through a competence portfolio process.

Photo: http://samkerson.com

The process

1. Conduct a participatory audit of the organisations’ competences2. Develop the organisational ePortfolio

3. Use the ePortfolio as a tool for organisational development

Photo: Atelier Circulaire

1.1 Organisational Culture

Visit the organisation

Analyse core documents

Work with a group of representatives to clarify questions: ex. What brought you to the organisation initially? and Why are you still here?

Photo: http://samkerson.com

1. 2 Competence Framework

A common vocabulary : competences, typical activities, indicators of performance etc.. Le Groupe Réseau Conseil pour le Conseil

Québécois des Ressource Humaines en Culture, 2002, 51 pages.

1.3 Competence framework

Appropriation activity

ex. placing the competences in order of importance with which the organisation addresses it, both for its present functioning and its future ideal functioning

• Production - 135

• Support - 120

• Administration- 70

• Management - 65

• Artistic orientation - 35

• Distribution - 15

• Production -165

• Management - 95

• Artistic orientation - 70

• Administration - 60

• Distribution - 55

• Support - 30

FuturePresent

1.3 Activities Inventory

Document current and past activities of the organisation for each competence.

Photo: http://www.colba.net/~atelcirc/

1.4 Evaluating competenceEx. Define and update the artistic

orientation• 1. Define, detail or confirm the orientation

and the artistic vision and update it. • 2. Define the production and distribution

mandates in line with the organisation’s mandate.

• 3. Periodically evaluate the pertinence of the artistic orientation in accordance with the mission, clients, public, and community.

2. ePortfolio

2. ePortfolio

ePortfolio as a tool for…

• Strategic decision making• Competence-based analysis• Avoiding blank slate phenomenon

ex. Every project can start from a base

• Improving processes ex. For recurring events

• Documenting progress• Long-term planning (goal making)

Reaction from committee member

“It’s a perspective on us that we would have been incapable of structuring without never ending dispersing of ourselves. We now have our portfolio, which has an immediate use and long-term use for administrators”.

Reaction from committee member

“Very impressive - the sum of information gathered and the elements that came out of the process - It is really quite a task that you have accomplished.”

Lessons

• Existence of a competence framework adapted to organisations

• Representative participants in process

• Commitment: bottom up and top down

“The health of the learning ecology of the organization depends on effective

nurturing of information flow.” George Seiman

Thank you

Percolab.com

Samantha Slade

sam@percolab.com