Chapter 4: Roles and Skills Required

Brief

Identify Required Skills & Plan to Develop Next Generation Professionals

Abstract

The chapter 4 describes the skills required to realize the benefits of capability 5:15 as well as how WhiteSparrow Labs is helping develop next generation professionals. 

Capability 5:15 Processes

Performance Measures

• Business Outcomes

  • 5-fold improvement in how organizations conceive, plan, allocate resources, execute and assess impact of change

  • 15% improvement annually to Value Chain Processes

• Capability Health Metrics

  • Performance Measures

    • Lived Experiences of staff and customers, other relevant stakeholders

    • Pipeline of Opportunities

    • Impact of Investment

  • o   Diagnostic Measures

    • State of Opportunities by Line of Business, and by Value Chain Process

    • Stakeholder engagement

    • Status of Pipeline of Opportunities

Processes

·        Pipeline of all Opportunities

·        Roadmaps for Strategic Opportunities

·        Implementation Roadmap, Business Case and Detail Plan  

·        Drive Change

·        Assess Impact

Key Roles

Roles and skills required to manage capability 5:15 and generate expected productivity improvements.

• Product/Service Custodian – this role ensures the service readiness. This is a non managerial role and provides an objective view of service’s readiness to meet the needs of the enterprise. Typically, this role reports into lines of business leadership.

• Systems Architect – this role brings deep architecture, system engineering, relevant technologies and business skills that ensure technology capabilities are optimally aligned to meet business needs as well as solid understanding of ROI.

• Project Manager – this role brings deep project management skills to manage diverse set of skills and motivations to deploy architected solutions with deep focus on creating an environment for results to materialize.

Skills Matrix

• Competency

  • Basic – Basic understanding

  • Applied – Self sufficient 

  • Deep – Enhance state of the art

Skills Definition – ability to	Product/Service Custodian	Systems Architect	Project Manager
Build relationships that are based on trust and integrity with all stakeholders	Deep	Deep	Applied
Gain deep appreciation for organization culture, organization structure, operating models and strategic intent	Deep	Deep	Applied
Manage both up and down with integrity and scientific methods	Deep	Deep	Applied
Resolve conflicts among differing viewpoints	Applied	Deep	Applied
Engage all stakeholders to share their lived experiences with current systems, processes, policies as they perform their day-to-day tasks.	Deep	Applied	Basic
Create a culture that respect timeline and scarce resources	Applied	Deep	Deep
Translate lived experiences of all stakeholders into potential improvements	Deep	Deep	Basic
Create pragmatic systems architectures that is based on scientific methods.	Basic	Deep	Basic
Define stakeholder appropriate architectural artifacts	Basic	Deep	Basic
Package decision documents in a way that decision information can be confirmed at each investment stage	Basic	Deep	Basic
Ability to manage all resources, timelines and costs without sacrificing the culture	Applied	Applied	Deep

Approach to Develop Necessary Skills

To master the skills necessary for above roles, we believe,  both a formal education and professionally managed residency programs are necessary.

·        Candidates

• Third-year elective course for Business, Engineering, Computer Science and Social

• Professionals with 1 to 3 year working experiences and employment at one of our partner organizations

·        Education 

• Systems Architecture Thinking – ability to think in terms of contextual, conceptual, logical and physical architecture perspectives

• System Architecture Domain – People, Process, Information, Data, Application, Infrastructure and Security

• End to end process to develop, communicate, implement and assess impact of systems architecture

·        Training

• Hands on mentoring to apply the formal education techniques to practical situations.

·        Internship Post 3^rd year

• The four-month internship or 12-month residence in one of the above roles within WhiteSparrow Labs or at one of our partner organizations

·        Post Graduate Residency

• Upon graduation candidates have two option to join WhiteSparrow Labs Postgraduate 3 year residency program or join the residency program at one of our partner organizations.

• Graduate school or employment with any other employer

Future Management Professionals

As organizations expand, there is a consistent demand for senior managers with expertise in operations management and ongoing productivity enhancement across value chain processes. The Capability 5:15 framework provides an ideal environment for cultivating the next generation of business leaders.