The abounding value of assessment and strategic data capture to drive: better recruitment, effective project resource planning, productive training and development plans as well as strategically focused human resource management teams.
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An overview of the value of KnowledgeSmart
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The abounding value of KnowledgeSmart (Part 2)
Following on from our previous post, let's consider the second strategic question.
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Review the valuable data collected in the last action.
Where to do want to be?
During this significant phase of strategic planning, a company can use their KnowledgeSmart assessment results combined with research on future trends and competitor analysis to formulate a series of positioning statements.
Review the valuable data collected in the last action.
- What trends can be identified?
- Do you spot any visible areas of weakness or strengths?
Look beyond just the assessment results in terms of score and elapsed time. Consider the additional data captured by KnowledgeSmart by default such as:
- Primary learning method
- Years of experience
- Self-rating (this indicates confidence)
- Frequency of use (this could help focus your training plans where it might have the most significant impact)
This step in strategy development might also include:
- Vision statement
- Mission statement
- Goals
- Objectives
- Positioning statements
KnowledgeSmart Assessment data can also be beneficial in helping companies formulate realistic, achievable goals and objectives.
Once companies have an objective measurement of the current situation, they can set more realistic achievable goals and objectives. Companies can even use KnowledgeSmart's internal or global benchmarks to influence their goal setting. Repeat assessments can assist with measuring interim outcomes as plans progress.
How will you align your teams with your strategic goals? Use your KnowledgeSmart data to restructure according to skill and productivity.
What are the roles and responsibilities going to look like? Use your assessment results to identify your star users and retain them through additional development and recognition. Focus learning just on what is needed and re-assess after training interventions to report a positive ROI. Have confidence in your team when pitching for new projects.
No more guesswork. Reliable, objective, valuable data to influence this phase of strategic planning.
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The abounding value of KnowledgeSmart (Part 3)
Once you have done your analysis on the current status quo and formulated realistic, achievable goals and objectives, it is time to use your KnowledgeSmart data to help you get back on track.
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This phase of strategic planning includes typically:
The efficacy of training/coaching and mentoring plans can be tracked by doing follow up assessments customised to the contents of those plans. These types of assessments are short and very useful. Training budgets are often tight, and with your KnowledgeSmart results, you can direct training only where it is needed and prioritise which teams should get assistance first. Monitor improvement in scores, time elapsed, improvement in self-rating scores and a reduced number of training requirements and personal skill gaps.
Bid for new projects with confidence knowing the team that is behind you will be able to deliver.
The KnowledgeSmart Tools deliver so much more than skill assessments and should instead be seen as an essential strategic management tool.
This phase of strategic planning includes typically:
- Developing supporting strategies and initiatives
- Structuring action plans including resource plans
- Deciding on the appropriate tracking systems
The efficacy of training/coaching and mentoring plans can be tracked by doing follow up assessments customised to the contents of those plans. These types of assessments are short and very useful. Training budgets are often tight, and with your KnowledgeSmart results, you can direct training only where it is needed and prioritise which teams should get assistance first. Monitor improvement in scores, time elapsed, improvement in self-rating scores and a reduced number of training requirements and personal skill gaps.
Bid for new projects with confidence knowing the team that is behind you will be able to deliver.
The KnowledgeSmart Tools deliver so much more than skill assessments and should instead be seen as an essential strategic management tool.
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KnowledgeSmart and the 6 Secrets of Project Resource Management
How can the KnowledgeSmart tools influence the process of allocating scarce resources among the various projects or business units in your company?
According to the Thinking Portfolio team, there are 6 secrets to good project resource management.There are of course many different types of resources in any project, e.g. people, machinery, materials, technology, property and anything else required to deliver the work. Many project plans also demand internal and external resources to be managed.
Here at KnowledgeSmart, we tend to focus on people, possibly one of most critical resources project managers have to manage.
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| KnowledgeSmart Tools and 6 Secrets of a Project Management Resource Plan |
We have included our logo icon in the image above indicating where we feel the KnowledgeSmart tools can have influence.
Resource Estimation
Before you are able to do any kind of estimation you need understand your team's expertise and job responsibilities. The KnowledgeSmart skills assessments and customisable datafields can be great to gather this important data.
Collection of Data
Think critically about what information is needed. What data do you actually need, what data is known now, what data will be useful This will narrow down the data that needs to be captured. Is there additional data that might be better captured using the KnowledgeSmart survey tool or will you only use the skills assessments for now?
Once you have analysed your data think about how best to include it in your resource plan. With KnowledgeSmart being a cloud-based tool and working on all devices your team and you will be able to reflect, learn and repeat the process as many times as is needed.
A good resource plan
Having an objective global view on the skill levels of your available resources can be very powerful in identifying potential pitfalls in project delivery and enable the introduction of productivity improvement measures necessary for the business to meet its strategic objectives.The KnowledgeSmart data query tool, charts, and benchmarking tools can make a valuable contribution to your resource plan.
The KnowledgeSmart user profile area encourages engagement to make sure that all team members are aligned and working towards common objectives.
Schedule Development
Use your KnowledgeSmart results to influence your activity duration estimates. All results can be viewed based on score (accuracy) and elapsed time. If for example, you see your star user took 4 minutes to complete a question on detailing, this might help you estimate this part of the project schedule a bit more accurately. Consider grouping your results based on project teams as this will help you re-shuffle the teams based on project requirements as well as design urgent training interventions where it is needed most.If you know the project requires certain aspects of the project to be delivered within a tight timeframe, you can allocate your top 10 users to this component for the critical days. Use the KnowledgeSmart Data Query Tool to filter to your top users within seconds. Allocate the right people to the right segments of the right projects based on actual skills.
Negotiating for resources
When negotiating for resources, there are a few components that require consideration. The negotating parties might include your client, other project stakeholders or other functional managers within your organisation. In all cases, there might be differing opinions on project feasibility. There is no doubt that your negotiation skills will be tested. To negotiate about resources you need a clear understanding of the other party's needs and be able to clearly explain how you plan to meet those needs.
Having a solid understanding of the skill levels and skill gaps of the team behind you is indeed good ammunition.
No more guesswork, data-driven decisions.
Let KnowledgeSmart be one of the project resource management tools you can't live without.
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KnowledgeSmart New Feature - Assessment User Report
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KnowledgeSmart New Feature - Define System Email Recipients
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How do your users' Revit skills measure up?
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| Image Screenshot Source: http://blogs.autodesk.com/revit/ |
The article identifies these skills as:
- Trim and Extend Elements
- About the Crop Region
- Best Practices: Printing
- About Curtain Wall Panels (Add a Door to a Curtain Wall)
- Workflow: Select Fields for a Schedule
This brings me to a couple of salient questions:
- How does your users' measure up in terms of these skills?
- Should they be spending valuable company time watching these videos at all?
- Are there more relevant videos based on their skill gaps?
- What percentage of people on your team do need more training on these topics?
- What is the percentage skill gap amongst your users?
Skills assessment and training go hand-in-hand - always!
So could skills testing help a company align the right training? Absolutely! KnowledgeSmart customers strategically use skill-based testing to identify learning needs, highlight areas of strength and expose areas of growth both before and after employment.
So how did I create the visual above?
I analysed some of the KnowledgeSmart demo data based on question performance. I isolated all questions with training tags linked to the 5 skill areas the Autodesk article identifies and then sorted them in order of priority in Microsoft PowerBI. Based on my industry experience and the fact that these five skills were compiled from Autodesk customer data I agreed with Autodesk's findings that these Revit skills were important for users. Looking at my results data, it would appear that worksharing, view properties, detailing and worksets were priority areas for my group.Next I can start thinking about slicing this data based on office location or perhaps based on some of the other valuable background data that KnowledgeSmart offers. But I will save that for another day.
Focus your time and efforts and assign training where it is needed most. Increase productivity and reduce project risk.
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The #1 Question to Ask When Considering a Training Initiative
I am sure we are all in agreement that your employees, your people, are the company's most important asset. Sadly many companies place a lot of emphasis on their recruitment and interview process, and the investment stops there. Most people are expected to just get on with it. Employees only meet expectations when they are clear about what's expected and connected to the short to medium-term goals for the company.
It is, of course, true that some companies are very passionate about people development and training but get they tend to get lost in a sea of training content that managers subjectively believe their teams need to be trained on. Without focus, a quantifiable case study of why the training is mission critical right now, defined time frameworks and evident ROI's, the senior management team are not likely to sign off on any training plans anytime soon.
While training initiatives may ultimately contribute to a company's long-term success, which of them are critical to the short to medium term goals of the company.
Go through the proposed training plans and identify the ones that you believe will grow the knowledge with the power to make or break your company right now.
Is the proposed initiative a nice to have or is it aligned with the goals and objectives the company has set for the next 3-12 months?
How critical is this training initiative for your company's success in the next 3-12 months? According to an interesting Randstad Survey, many employees are aware they need upskilling, but they are frankly not taking ownership of this. The survey reveals over a third of U.S employees have done nothing to upskill in the last 12 months, even though they knew it was important. The reasons survey respondents gave for not charging ahead with their own upskilling was as follows: 67 percent of U.S. employees say they feel they need more training and skills to stay up-to-date. Nearly 40 percent of U.S. employees say their employers have not offered and paid for anything related to upskilling. 40 percent of U.S. employees say they wouldn’t arrange for and pay out of their own pockets to upskill themselves. I would agree that employees need to take personal responsibility for their own upskilling but that employers must take more interest in enabling and encouraging them to do so.
Another insightful article worth a read is from the Harvard Review focusing on the fact that managers are not doing enough to upskill their employees for the future. This article advocates employees being invited to contribute to the process of identifying the knowledge, skills, and abilities they’ll need in the short and long run.
I would agree with a more collaborative approach, but this must always be underpinned with good objective data as employees opinions might not be precise. What we think we know and need, is sometimes very different, from our actual knowledge or what the business critically needs right now.
One such enabling tool is Degreed. Degreed is an education technology company that is engaged in enabling and recognizing professional and lifelong learning and skills. The platform allows users to learn, develop and measure their skills. Degreed is free for individuals. An enhanced version, Degreed for Enterprise, connects internal learning and talent systems to global ecosystems of free, open and paid learning resources, and is available to organizations for a fee as a hosted cloud-based solution. I recently analyzed how KnowledgeSmart background and results data could integrate with solutions like Degreed, and it was an insightful exercise.
KnowledgeSmart also recently announced a new integration with Pinnacle Series. The integration between Pinnacle Series and KnowledgeSmart allows users to evaluate their skills and have a personalized learning path assigned to expand their knowledge. Identify skills gaps and work to close them with courses specifically designed for an individual's needs.
These type of tools can help empower companies to enable their teams to upskill while being able to report useful business metrics to justify budget spend and contribute to other strategic areas beyond training and development such as project resource management and future recruitment for example.
Let's circle back to that number one question you should ask when considering a training initiative.
How critical is this training initiative for your company's success in the next 3-12 months? If the answer is not a resounding yes then it is time to reconsider and befriend the KnowledgeSmart data query tool.
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Critical MS Excel Areas to Test – Prior to Hiring
I recently came across a great article by Kat Boogaard from GoSkills which goes through six critical things any Microsoft Excel user should know how to do.
1. Sorting Data
2. Removing Duplicate Data
3. Basic Math Functions
4. Freezing Panes
5. Date Functionality
6. Making the same change across worksheets
1. Crucial navigational controls in Excel
2. Performing Calculations - formulas and functions
3. Excel Formatting Tools
4. Working with data - managing your spreadsheets
5. Optimising your spreadsheet for printing
6. Creating and modifying charts in Excel.
I am sure we can all agree that Microsoft Excel is one of the most widely used business tools today and with it becoming increasingly important to isolate the data needed as fast as possible.
During a typical interview, the panel might prompt the candidate to elaborate on their current Excel skills and possibly examples of projects they have worked on. The response from the candidate is entirely subjective and based on self-perception.
Validity
KnowledgeSmart skills assessments are valid: they measure what they are supposed to measure. Our Microsoft Excel (amongst other) assessments offer two levels, i.e., fundamentals and advanced. From the results of these assessments, an employer or potential employer would easily be able to ascertain who has a good understanding of the program and who doesn't. Two elements are reported namely score (accuracy) and elapsed time (the time the candidate took to complete the assessment, module or specific question).
Reliability
Authored by industry experts, our assessments are reliable and consistent which means any candidate can easily be benchmarked against current employees or candidates.
Discrimination
The one area that I particularly like is that independent skills assessments do not discriminate between people based on anything other than their ability to demonstrate and apply their skills.
The next time you are facing a possible new hire consider including an independent skills assessment as part of your decision matrix analysis. KnowledgeSmart skills assessments are entirely customisable which means the assessment can be adapted to your exact requirements. There are also some unique datafields that allows administrators to personalise the background data captured.
So much more than a test score
You will not only gather great insight into the candidate's skills as far as accuracy and speed of working is concerned, but you will also be able to capture a valuable background data.
Below is an example of how your KnowledgeSmart Results and Background Data can then be visualised to be placed onto a Microsoft PowerBI Dashboard if needs be. Group the background data most critical for your company,
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| Comparing Candidates |
With all this information readily available you would also be able to plan inductions plan a lot more effectively once you have made your selection.
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| Microsoft PowerBI KnowledgeSmart Visualisations - Example Dashboard |
Don't just take our word for it. Have a look below at what JohnsonBIM have to say.
We use KnowledgeSmart to enable our clients to recruit smarter candidates and to prove their ability; we find that it ensures better outcomes. By replacing guesswork with the KnowledgeSmart skills assessment, our clients know precisely how and where their candidates will add value to their organisation before they hire them.
Mike Johnson - Managing Director,
JohnsonBIM, London, UK
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KnowledgeSmart Skills Matrix Update
With the new KnowledgeSmart skills matrix tool (currently under development) you will be able to capture the Qualifications, Certifications and Skill Levels of your staff in defined topics.
“Skills” is a collective term for an individual’s knowledge, qualifications, certifications and abilities. The Skills Record is populated from a Skills Survey, which is built using the Survey tool.
Surveys can easily be created which are purely Skills related. Skills specific Modules are assembled from the Skills Library questions. The construction of the Survey can be related to the role of the User. This way a Designer may receive a different Skill Survey compared to a Project Manager
You will have the ability to issue multiple Skills Surveys. For example, one on Engineering Software Skills, one on Microsoft software, one on Business Skills, etc.
This information will be used to,
1. Search for staff with specific Skills; required by the business for project, mentoring or training activities,
2. Identify strengths and weaknesses in staff Skill levels. This should inform training needs, and ensure training investments are made in the correct area
The benefits of the KnowledgeSmart skills matrix will stretch from the individual to the team, the organization and even to external clients.
So just where will you start? Identifying the core set of skills your project demands or team needs is a fundamental step to any skills matrix process.
When creating your list, include:
- Current skills or experience: The skills or experience that your team members use today to perform their role.
- Future skills or experience: Skills or experience that your team will need in the future as you plan to use new approaches or tools.
The first phase is then to issue a skills survey whereby you ask the individual team members to provide feedback as to how they rate themselves on these skills.
There are a number of different scales available but the most common one seems to be a 5-point scale
We hope to give you a little flexibility in designing your own scale.
Your skills defined in the first phase will help you structure your actual competency assessment.
This would be the skills assessment process already in place within your KnowledgeSmart admin dashboard.
The third phase is an interesting one and often overlooked. A KnowledgeSmart Skills Survey question can also be used to get information on the User’s interest level in a Skill. For example, a question on Revit Architecture competency could be followed by one on Revit Architecture level of interest, and/or desire for training.When people enjoy what they are doing productivity tends to rise speedily.
Survey options here might include the following two options:
- No interest in applying this skill or knowledge
- Interested in applying this skill or knowledge
We hope to have a way to allow a User’s Manager to approve the User’s self rating. A Skills Record will be created and stored for each KS User. It will be accessible though the KS Admin and User Dashboard, and through a Team Page or Dashboard for a Manager. Once this information is available the results can be populated on a matrix. Users will be able to log in to update Skills Surveys or view Skills Survey results.
What we are hoping to achieve with the new development is to build a bridge between the above results and actual skills assessment results. We have found it very often that a user's understanding of his own skill level is very different from actual results. Managers will then gain new insight in looking at the combination of the assessment result as well as the skills survey.
From a reporting perspectice the outputs we hope to deliver include a Skills Matrix, People or Talent Finder, Heat Maps and related charts. And in light of our big focus on Microsoft PowerBI we will also make sure there is a PowerBI friendly export.
The better the data the better the insight. We will keep you updated but hope to have this development live within the first quarter of 2019.
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New BIM360 Assessment Collection in Development
We have recently had our annual technical workshop in Bath and future library content is always on the agenda.
Taking into account the industry trend towards software as a service and cloud-based solutions, we are very excited to announce that we will shortly be commencing on a new project to develop a new assessment library that will cover the Autodesk BIM 360 portfolio of services as well as the required workflows linking the design authoring software to the services.
BIM 360 covers all aspects of a construction project, enabling project managers, subcontractors, designers, architects, and other construction management professionals to have total control over the processes and phases of their project. From conceptualization and design all the way to the commissioning and handover, BIM 360 has all the solutions and the tools to help you and your team perform to your optimum best.
The below list of features will help guide us on developing this new content but we will also be focusing on assessing a user's knowledge of best practice workflows.
- Quality and safety operations
- Design reviews
- Work assignment and tracking
- Project control
- Real-time project status
- Reporting and analytics
- Documentation
- Full project visibility
- Single project repository
- Issue management
- Construction safety
- Change visualization
- Deliverable coordination
- Design collaboration
- Multi-discipline coordination
- RFIs and submittals
- Controlled work sharing
- Quality management
- Document control
- BIM coordination
Other titles coming soon are:
- MicroStation Connect / AECOsim Connect
- Newforma advanced
- Revit Structure Advanced
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Collaborate With Confidence - Build Your Updated Skills Inventory in 2019
If we are going to see improvement in project collaboration all stakeholders will need to start interacting much earlier on.
Collaborating using Autodesk Revit software for example requires a specific skillset e.g. interference checking, model linking, working with worksets, understanding the copy/monitor tool and more.
Within a couple of minutes, KnowledgeSmart administrators can build an assessment in KnowledgeSmart focusing around assessing their team on these specific aspects.
Having access to up to date skills inventories across all participating companies can help build a successful team that is adept at working together. It can also help assess suitability for collaboration and where collaboration should take place ideally.
One of the biggest costs of projects is waste and I am not just referring to physical waste. Wasted resources and poor resource planning can cost companies millions.
The above image shows the results from two firms looking to collaborate. Visual slicers on the right include: company name, certificated training (yes or no), 2Yrs+ Project Experience (Yes/No), Current Project Focus, Project Manager, Elapsed Time and Hire Date. We can assess collaboration suitability and even map out optimal project teams.
The above visualisation uses a radar chart to compare the skills gaps across two companies. The process involves focusing on the skills that the project needs. If the skill gaps are too considerable for training to solve, at this point, the project management team would consider collaborating with a further company or hiring internally focussing on the relevant skills required. Using the 5 unique datafields that KnowledgeSmart allows you to capture our analysis contains richer data. In this case: office location, hire date, project area focus, years of project experience and certificated training (yes or no).
The above image shows a slightly different way of looking at skill gaps across the collaborating companies and these can be analysed according to current team structure or even on an individual bases.
Using the same filters as described above we can now also identify the best possible project mentors between the two companies. Who are the people that can offer the most support to teams on either side of the collaboration?
All these visualisations can easily be added to a dashboard that can be shared across the management team and stakeholders so that improved, more insightful decisions can be made very early on.
KnowledgeSmart can help companies collaborate with more confidence both internally and externally. This will identify potential risks and problems early on and make sure the right people are assigned to the right elements of the right project.
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