Think city map first, street level second
Picture planning a city from forty thousand feet. From up there you see the whole layout and how it works. Then you fly down and work on specific streets. Each phase below has steps that help you zoom out and zoom in at the right moments.
The people involved
- Steering committee: Leaders and stakeholders who take ownership of the implementation. Often directors or managers, respected across departments, in touch with the culture, and good communicators. They commit about five hours a week at most.
- Implementation team: Skill-minded analysts who help the committee find and document mission-critical skills.
- Organization leadership and stakeholders: Executives, directors and managers who depend on the results.
- Champions: Subject-matter experts who want to mentor and guide others in their areas of expertise. About five hours a week at most.
Start small, repeat often
You can work on several departments at once, spending more time in each phase to plan and reuse. Or you can work in an agile way: take a handful of skills, move them through all four phases, and deliver more often. Either way, the same process works again every time you need new skills.
- Phase 1DiscoverA blueprint and plan for your competency model and learning system.
- Phase 2DesignA complete competency model, mastery evaluations, and learning materials.
- Phase 3DevelopA complete badge system with evaluation instructions, learning activities and pathways.
- Phase 4DeliverA working credentialing system your employees already use to discover, gain and verify skills. It can connect to your existing learning system if you have one.
Phase 1: Discover
Purpose: Bring leadership and stakeholders together to think about the human skills that let the organization run and excel.
You get: A blueprint and plan for your competency model and learning system.
Steps
- Prepare leadership. Identify and free up the implementation team. Form the steering committee. Pre-schedule the meetings (see below). Make sure the committee can explain and advocate for the work. Meet to restate vision, mission and strategy as your "true north." Set up a stream of communication to employees.
- Discover champions. Find subject-matter experts for the areas you've chosen. Talk through the goals so they can advocate. Find out how much time they can give, during the build and afterward.
- Discover metrics. Find someone who can help with metrics and automation. Learn how people currently know they're doing well. Find out how KPIs are tracked. A great question to ask: "If your team members were 80% more effective in six months, which KPI would be most affected?"
- Discover audiences. Identify the roles, teams and departments to consider. Think about levels of expertise needed, impact on success metrics, and how much confidence you need in skills.
- Discover skill areas. List the skills needed for the organization to operate and excel. See Skill discovery for the questions and sources to use.
- Prioritize. The steering committee decides which skill areas to build first, based on strategy, revenue, retention and culture.
The ten steering committee meetings
Hold these in roughly this order, adjusting as needed:
Show all 10 rows
| # | Topic | Outcome |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Vision, mission and strategy | Everyone shares the same "true north." |
| 2 | Organization culture | Shared understanding of culture and how to align changes for adoption. |
| 3 | Introduction to the method | The committee understands what the project aims to do and how. |
| 4 | Implementation planning | Clear on which groups are affected and to what extent. Key stakeholders identified. |
| 5 | Metrics planning | Clear on metrics that will show positive or negative effects. |
| 6 | Stakeholder onboarding | Stakeholders understand the aim and how it affects them. They're asked to provide materials and information about their skills. |
| 7 | Adoption planning | A plan for long-term adoption and for handling objections. |
| 8 | Communication planning | A plan for frequent communication and feedback. |
| 9 | Succession planning | A plan to pass the torch to another group or person at the right time. |
| 10 | Badge selection | A prioritized list of badges to build. |
Add short progress meetings as needed.
Pre-flight checklist (print-friendly)
- Leadership has bought in
- Leadership has told business unit leaders what to expect
- Steering committee is formed
- Implementation team is chosen and has time
- Both teams share the same view of vision and mission
- The implementation team understands the strategy
- Both teams understand the method top to bottom
Phase 2: Design
Purpose: Turn your drafts into an actionable competency model and learning system.
You get: A complete competency model, mastery evaluations, and learning materials.
Steps
- Clarify competencies. Decide which draft competencies suit which audience, or whether competencies need multiple levels. Check them against your vision and mission. Decide whether any should expire.
- Translate competencies. Rewrite each draft as a properly formed competency (see the principles). Order them by difficulty. Group them into modules. Share the model with the processes that can use it, such as recruiting, job descriptions, reviews and promotions, and culture.
- Define evaluations. Choose one or more evaluation for each badge (see evaluations). Write instructions and rubrics. Plan any scheduling.
- Plan learning activities. Work with experts to plan materials. Build them, buy them, or curate what exists. Offer more than video. Include practice ideas.
Phase 3: Develop
Purpose: Assemble designed competencies into awardable badges.
You get: A complete badge system with evaluation instructions, learning activities and pathways.
Steps
- Compile and build badges. Move competencies, evaluation instructions and learning activities into your badge platform or learning system. Put rubrics where evaluators can reach them. Create badge images. Set expiration and other details.
- Deploy and adopt. Make sure awarding works and is streamlined. Make sure scheduling works. Release badges to employees in small batches for testing. Monitor logistics, awarding and feedback. Make sure award metrics are being saved. Set up pathways.
Phase 4: Deliver
Purpose: Prepare champions to award and evaluate each badge, and hand it all over.
You get: A working credentialing system your employees already use to discover, gain and verify skills. It can connect to your existing learning system if you have one.
Steps
- Give unit leaders access to assign badges to their teams.
- Build a succession plan for champions, since people leave.
- Make sure badges can be found in your existing learning system, if you have one.
- Make sure champions can change every part of badges, evaluations and rubrics.
- Make sure champions can award and revoke badges.
- Keep watching activity and adjust.
Helpful extras during adoption: Give everyone a "lifelong learner" badge to kick things off, and set up the right badges in new employee onboarding.
Doing this yourself, or with help
You can do all of this on your own. Many organizations do. Some choose to bring in help for a faster start, for ongoing evaluations as they grow, or for a steadier hand with leadership and change. If that's you, we'd be glad to talk.