Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIAplus): Now offered in Australasia by ProActive!

SFIAplus: Now available in Australia & New Zealand either as a stand alone product, or utilised as part of ProActive's Education Programme Service!

ProActive recently introduced SFIAplus (Skills Framework for the Information Age), to customers at events located in Melbourne and Sydney, with guest speaker Roy Shepherd from BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT (BCS).

SFIAplus forms part of ProActive's Education Programme and is used as a basis for assessing organisation's skill level in comparison to industry standards.

SFIAplus is based on SFIA.  SFIA is a public domain product developed by a UK Government-backed SFIA Foundation, of which BCS is a key member.  SFIA is gaining increasing international recognition and it provides a single paragraph job description that can be obtained from the BCS web site.  The BCS produced SFIAplus from SFIA by adding in the results of some twenty years development of industry standard job descriptions.  SFIAplus delivers detailed job descriptions and a comprehensive set of web-based tools and is available under licence only.

The differences between SFIA and SFIAplus are best explained by BCS on their website:

"For each SFIA skill, SFIAplus contains EIGHT additional skill resources. For each SFIA task, SFIAplus includes SIX additional task components. The additional training and development detail for all 86 skills and 290 tasks makes SFIAplus a three dimensional model."    -  http://www.bcs.org/server.php?show=nav.7852 

SFIAplus allows organisations to apply a standard framework to the specific skills, qualifications, competencies and responsibilities required for typical roles within the IT industry. It not only takes the headache out of writing endless job descriptions, but it can substantially increase productivity and consistency saving organisations valuable time and money.

SFIAplus also provides specific guidelines for IT professionalism, whereby each employee is aware of the specific measures that entitle them to reach higher levels or change roles within their organisation.

This has several benefits including:

• providing the ability to map employees' career paths;
• Ensuring the right people are placed in the right role, and that these roles are carried out most efficiently;
• Managers have a better understanding of each role and the abilities of each employee in that role;
• organisations can customise their own job descriptions;
• employees are more motivated to add to their skill base, qualifications and have a clear understanding of what is required to progress to the next stage of their career; and providing tangible evidence and guidance to support the Performance Review and Learning Path process.

As the only reseller of SFIAplus in Australia / New Zealand, the BCS have acknowledged ProActive's leadership in this area, and are working with us to: a) localise the tool, incorporating local qualifications, and b) extend it to incorporate our newer education offerings of CobiT, Prince2 and KCS.

If you would like any further information on SFIAplus, contact us on 1300 880 855 or NZ 0800 11 56 56.