Competencies and Skills

In general language, a competence interchanges qualification. However, although the terms not equal, the AyMINE manages them together – trainings, skills, competencies, competency and qualification are managed in the same way. Look here to read more about them

Standalone sections

More about rights to manage qualifications is here.

Level of competence / qualification is described here.

What's capability or qualification

Capability expresses what someone on the team can do. Examples of capabilities are:

• Capability to speak German
• Write an IT analysis
• Verify product quality

Qualification is competence verified by some qualification control, e.g. exam, certification or a diploma.

Why are the qualifications and competencies important

Most of the companies have some documentation of competencies. However, AyMINE goes much further, because qualifications are integrated into the quality management system and each task-definition from the QMS can be linked with the qualification that the task performer, reviewer or decision maker should have.

Qualifications are automatically controlled when a task is assigned to a responsible in the workflow during the project planning.

Qualification evidence

Documentation of qualifications is related to workers, task definition and defined project roles.

• The qualifications of the user workers are recorded.
• For activities, the standards specify the qualifications of the people in the team carrying out the activity.

Based on the documentation, it is possible to:

• Identify workers for the team with appropriate qualification
• Verify that workers assigned to a task have requisite skills
• The quality management review is fully supported: an internal audit could easily control that all tasks were performed by a person with required qualification
• It is possible to track who is coming to the end of their certificate and schedule new training or clearance.

Where are the qualifications entered?

Qualifications are part of the methodologies.

Unification of qualifications

Each methodology may define its own qualifications, but it is obviously advisable to have only one definition for each qualification you are tracking. However, there are also valid reasons for having multiple descriptions:

• However, if the requirements for similar work differ between methodologies, it may not be effective to describe them in a uniform way. You may then have several times a similar qualification with slightly different requirements for the holder.
• National requirements may also be different – then you need to keep a record of who is qualified for which country.
• Knowledge related to a particular version of the standard. As the standard changes, people need to be retrained. It is therefore necessary to distinguish who is already qualified to the new standard and who is still qualified to the old standard.
• The qualification is defined in the standard where you cannot change it. If the qualification is part of a standard supplied by an external supplier, you probably do not have the ability to modify it. You may then need to create your own if the standard does not suit.

If the qualification is generic and relevant to multiple standards, it may be preferable to create a generic qualification methodology and concentrate all the qualifications in one place.

Don't see the qualifications you need?

The right to track qualifications requires authorization. You must have reader or active user rights to the methodology where the qualifications are defined. If you don't have this right, you can't see the qualifications, and you can't find out who in the company or suppliers has them.

A qualification is not a role

A Qualification is an ability, skill, or authority to perform an activity or hold a role.

In contrast, Role (often used in the same sense as position_) means placement in the organizational structure of a company or project (organizational vs. project role).

AyMINE not only distinguishes between these two terms, but also handles them very differently. Roles/positions result from the organizational structure of the firm, the firm sets them itself according to its needs and they are part of its definition of the structure. Qualifications, on the other hand, are determined by methodologies and are independent of the organizational structure. Within the AyMINE system they are therefore part of the methodologies.