About SFIA
SFIA, the Skills Framework for the Information Age, describes the Skills and Competencies required by professionals in roles involved in the booming data economy.
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History and background
SFIA was formally launched in 2000, although its origins can be traced back to the 1980s and a number of collaborative skills and competency projects. These led to the SFIA Framework and the formation of the not-for-profit SFIA Foundation, which ensures SFIA is available to the international user base. The SFIA Foundation brings together the global community to develop and maintain the Framework for the benefit of all.
SFIA has become the globally accepted common language for the skills and competencies related to information and communication technologies, digital transformation, cyber security and software engineering. It remains a collaboration, regularly updated through a global open consultation process. People with real practical experience of developing and managing skills and competencies in corporate, public sector and educational environments from all around the world, contribute to ensuring it remains relevant and true. It is built by industry and business for industry and business.
These components set SFIA apart from other frameworks and has resulted in its adoption by governments, corporates and individuals in almost 200 countries.
Ongoing success
Its unique and ongoing success can be attributed to:
- Built and maintained by the global user community
- Global collaborative development
- Global design and steering boards
- A 20+ year provenance and track record of successful use
- An established ecosystem and trusted infrastructure
- A neutral approach – it is not aligned to any specific technologies, vendors or professional bodies
SFIA is updated frequently in order to remain relevant and aligned with the needs of industry and business and current thinking.
What is SFIA?
It is an easy to use common reference model
A practical resource for people who manage or work in or around information and communication technologies, digital transformation, cyber security, software engineering, and other technology-dependent specialisms.
What it does:
- Provides a framework consisting of professional skills on one axis and seven levels of responsibility on the other.
- Describes the professional skills at various levels of competence.
- Describes the levels of responsibility, in terms of generic attributes of Autonomy, Influence, Complexity, Knowledge and Business Skills.
A common language for skills in the digital world
SFIA gives individuals and organizations a common language for defining skills and expertise in a consistent way. The use of clear language, avoiding technical jargon and acronyms, makes SFIA accessible to all involved. This includes people doing the work, and people in supporting roles such as human resources, learning and development, organization design, and procurement. It helps solve common translation issues that hinder communication and effective partnerships within organizations and multi-disciplinary teams.
This consistency means that SFIA works well for both large and small organizations. They share an approach, a vocabulary, and a focus on skills and capability.
Why use SFIA?
Designed to be completely flexible and to fit seamlessly with a user’s established ways of working.
01.
Does not define a fixed methodology or prescribe organizational structures, roles or jobs. It simply provides clear descriptions of skills and levels of responsibility.
02.
Can be used across multiple industries and organizational types. It’s an ideal framework for individuals, small and large teams, whole departments or entire organizations with thousands of employees.
SFIA key design principles
A number of design principles have persisted throughout all versions of SFIA.
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Straightforward, generic and universally applicable.
The breadth of coverage is broad and SFIA is designed to be applicable to all sectors. -
An experience-based framework.
An individual has a particular competence because they have demonstrated that they have a level of responsibility and have practised a number of skills at the levels required in real world situations. SFIA is not aligned to any qualification or certification; certifications can be aligned to SFIA but qualifications that merely test knowledge do not indicate experience nor a level of responsibility. -
Defines levels of responsibility and skills.
SFIA does NOT define jobs, roles, people, processes or general areas of activity, however important they are. -
Defines the essence of skills.
SFIA is descriptive, not prescriptive. It does not define low level tasks nor deliverables.
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Provides an integrated view of competency.
SFIA recognises levels of responsibility, professional skills, behaviours or attributes, knowledge and qualifications and certifications. It shows how these fit together and how they complement each other. -
Independent of technology and approach.
SFIA does not define technology, methods, approaches or technical knowledge – these change rapidly but the underlying skills are more persistent. So, for instance, Cloud, DevOps, Agile, Big Data and digital roles etc. can be described using a combination of the SFIA skills. -
Updated by real practitioners from the international user base.
SFIA is driven by its end users – the content reflects what industry and business want and it is not driven by any single stakeholder group. -
Does not assume or recommend specific organization structures, job or role designs.
The SFIA skills and levels can be configured flexibly to support all organizational types and structures. It works for individuals, small and large teams, whole departments or entire organizations with thousands of employees.
Who is it for?
The design and structure of SFIA makes it a flexible resource with a proven track record of being adopted and adapted to support a wide variety of skills and people-management related activities. The following list provides an indication of the current usage of SFIA by different stakeholder groups.
Note that this list is neither exhaustive nor prescriptive and new uses of SFIA are continually being developed and described by the SFIA community.
- assessing current skills and experience
- identifying future interests, career goals, and planning personal development
- identifying suitable courses, qualifications, and professional memberships
- creating CVs, resumés, and personal skills profiles
- applying for job vacancies which match their skills and experience
- developing high quality, focused, learning and development objectives
- resource management and resource deployment
- identify operational risks in teams and developing succession plans
- measuring current capability and planning for future demand
- creating role profiles and job descriptions supported by skill and skill level definitions
- strategic capability planning
- identification and risk management for critical skills gaps
- aligning organizational capabilities to technology and business strategies
- planning and implementing transformations and mergers / acquisitions
- creating role profiles / job descriptions supported by consistent skill and skill level definitions
- strategic workforce planning, talent management, succession planning, assessment centres
- designing and implementing career families
- supporting organizational performance management and personal development processes
- improve employee engagement by supporting careers and professional development
- defining required competencies and skills profiles
- creating learning catalogs, blended learning solutions, curriculum, mixing formal and on-the-job learning
- aligning operating models with required people capabilities
- designing new roles and validating the skills needed to deliver a new operating model
- assessing organizational skill gaps and developing plans to close the gaps
- supporting the management of service providers (e.g. for outsourcing, staff augmentation, managed services, education, training, and consultancy services)
- provide a clear and transparent basis for describing the capability being sought or provided
- using SFIA Rate Cards for like-for-like comparison of resource-based services from suppliers
- specifying required competencies based on having the right skills with the required level of experience
- helps employers to accurately describe what they need, in language that potential employees understand
- creating competency-based selection criteria and assessment approaches
- creating discipline-specific competency frameworks aligned to a global standard
- linking bodies of knowledge to competencies
- mapping to support membership levels, certifications, professional development and mentoring programmes
- developing and mapping qualifications, accreditations, and career paths
- creating and maintaining a professional register of members’ skills and skill levels
- aligning curriculum to industry / employer needs and improving employability
- mapping curriculum to skills and knowledge attainment
- support for developmental and evaluative skills assessment
- align organization structures, salary banding and benchmarking
- link to an industry standard for levels of skills experience, and being compatible with standard approaches for job architectures, job sizing and job evaluation
Staying relevant
SFIA is kept relevant through open consultation and is updated every few years to address the needs of industry and business.
The architecture and underlying design principles of SFIA have remained unchanged, a testament to its usefulness and value. It continues to deliver what industry and business need in order to manage and develop skills and competencies.
SFIA adopted a continuous approach to consultation in order to remain responsive to new and changing needs. This process is facilitated via the SFIA Foundation website.
To continue to be useful, SFIA must reflect changing needs and perceptions of the significance of items, and changes in accepted terminology. Maintenance is carried out to ensure that SFIA remains relevant to the needs of industry, employers and individuals. It is part of an evolution that balances stability with the need to remain up to date.
Requests to update and extend SFIA skill definitions are welcome and are a visible sign of a healthy and well used resource.
Want to experience SFIA first hand?
Then why not register for our FREE SFIA self-assessment.
Just click the button to get started.
