November 01, 2009
Quality concepts teach that every process must have an "owner." A process owner is defined as someone who has responsibility for the overall success of the process, and who is also responsible for its continuous improvement. Process owners can improve processes on their own, or they can request to form a process improvement team if the task is complex enough and the potential benefit great enough.
Competency applications are certainly complex enough to justify a team development approach. But a common problem in many organizations is that there is not clear project ownership. Is HR leading the effort? Is this a line function driven by the management of those being assessed? Certainly, a range of individuals from many groups will be involved. But whose appraisal will be negatively affected when there is an unproductive outcome? The person (or department) with this responsibility must also have the authority to own the process.
RECOMMENDATIONS
The professional knowledge and skills required to own an assessment process are not typically found in line operations. Line managers and frontline workers provide subject matter expertise and are essential to the creation and evaluation of competency profile assessment instruments.
An assessment application development process potentially requires skills in consulting, formal team facilitation, job analysis, assessment authoring, test creation, development resource administration, database programming, and online systems development. Expertise in these areas is likely to be distributed across many administrative staff functions. Because so many groups within an organization are affected in competency application development, the process owner is best centrally located rather than remotely based. Professionals within HR or training often are logical candidates for assessment process ownership.
TIPS AND TECHNIQUES
Business Unit Managers can initiate the Competency Profiling Initiative to address their various HR needs i.e.: establish learning plans, staffing, career performance management, etc. However, always involve your HR function to ensure there is an alignment to an existing Competency Based Management Framework and to current HR policies.