THE SKILLRACE CONCEPT EXPLAINED

The Idea

How can we create a learning space that is usable and relevant to anybody, independent of both age and skill level? What if we also tried to make this space and its embedded resources available to everybody, across organizational and geographical borders? How can we break down all content so that each part can be combined with everything else? Can we empower the users to internalize the knowledge and best-practice in their own individual model, and still make sure that everything they do is efficient and effective with respect to learning outcome?

Answer: Yes, we can, it is possible and now we have done all this!

How Does it Work?

The learning process can be divided into 6 main stages as illustrated in the Quality Circle shown here.

We employ the following formula for learning productivity:

LEARNING PRODUCTIVITY

VOLUME

X

EFFICIENCY

X

EFFECTIVENESS

Or in other words: doing the right things right with enough repetitions. SkillRace takes you through these stages and makes sure that learning productivity is held at the highest possible level throughout.

The Work Process & Other Components

Everything in SkillRace is revolving around the work process structure. Either if it is a video clip, a url, a development objective or a training exercise, etc., they can all be tagged with items from one or more work processes. So instead of filing things into static folders, they are all indirectly coupled together via the relevant work process elements. With this approach we achieve two very important things: First, we have access to a global tagging system, which opens up an efficient access to external content tagged against the same elements. Second, we make every development building brick relevant with respect to the end purpose, which is to produce better in our work processes.

There is another exciting aspect of the work process structure, they can be inherited and customized. This means that best-practice blueprint work processes can be adopted from expert hubs, and then adjusted to your organization. This means that you will alway have access to whatever content is added at the top level, and have it automatically incorporated in your own content.

The figure below show different types of work process elements and higher level SkillRace components.

Use Case - Working Through the Stages

A typical use case could be the following:

A development plan with a hierarchy of development objectives and suggested actions is established, with each objective tagged against a corresponding role requirements from the key work process.

You sit down with an employee and create an individual development plan by picking relevant objectives from the general plan created in (1). You add some relevant video clips and urls from the media library to some of the objectives.

Based on the individual development plan, a periodic plan is set up to specify which topics and objectives to address from week-to-week (or any other time period), as well as suggested readings and exercises/sessions to work on.

The employee starts to evaluate himself with respect to performance and exposure to each objective. The manager can continuously monitor the progress.

The employee continuously engage himself in discussions threads attached to the respective objectives.

Based on the evaluations from last cycle, the plans and objectives are updated.

What Is an Ecosystem?

An arena where the entire industry and technical expertise can be present – companies, organizations, staff, academia and solution providers
An arena where you can share and sell competence, products and services to other actors
Staff and the industry get access to quality content and learning
An attractive and inspiring arena where everyone can participate
All actors decide what they share and with whom they share their content
Best practice and updates are shared with all users according to their roles and preferences

The SkillRace App is free for individuals, i.e. everyone interested in the industry can get involved in the ecosystem

Relevance and Focus Is Key

Work process for the industry is established (roles, skills, competencies, actions, situations and incidents)
Content such as publications, pictures, videos, topic maps and articles can easily be added
All content is related to elements from the work process matrix
Curriculum and development goals ensures a connection between staff´s learning and the organization´s goals
Users are exposed to content according to their role in the organization and personal preferences
Decide which organizations and actors you want to follow.

Efficient Learning

Curriculum (content) is attached to development plans (one can also include content from other actors in the curriculum)
Content is already related to the work process
General development plans for each role may be created and easily reused
An individual development plan is easily established by selecting goals and content from curriculum
Actions are related to each goal and its progress reported by the staff and monitored by management
Learning is connected to areas of responsibility and becomes part of the daily work
Each individual will enhance understanding of their relationship to the work process, goals and performance
Increased awareness will lead to improved participation, innovation and performance

Connecting Learning & Performance

A system that unites the organisation, staff, learning and performance on one single platform
Learning is directly related to work processes and performance
A system that inspires, is interactive and releases people´s potential
Evaluation of staff and managers is related to personal goals and performance
Tests and achievements can be monitored and related to rewarding
A systematic and tailor made career development for all staff
Further development to integrate KPI with work process and learning is ongoing

Exciting Features

Define your own work process and relate all content to elements from the work process
A social wall for your staff to share updates and relevant information
All learning is related to the work process
The system takes both learning for development and performance into consideration
Provide a tailor made information flow, development plan and goals to each person
Actions and a resulting activity calendar for your staff is provided
Discussion and feedback on both person and group level in included, also related to each development goal
Monitor and evaluate staff according to predefined competencies, actions and development goals
Tests and achievements can be monitored and related to rewarding
Easy to reuse, share and develop further
Any updates on goals, information and best practise is immediately shared with relevant people
Align your organisation to the approved best practise and ensure performance oriented innovation
If you decide to participate in the ecosystem all above functions can benefit from external competence as well
For most users it means that the number of existing platforms may be reduced

SKILLRACE