MyKnowledgeMap

CIM SkillsGap

Background: The Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) is the international body of the marketing sector offering support and training to those who work within this sphere. Its mission statement is “The delivery of world class professional support to marketing professionals”. In support of this statement the CIM wanted to further promote its learning offering for marketing professionals by facilitating the enrolment process for their courses. Showing people where their weaknesses lie in relation to their job roles and what courses are available to help them close these knowledge gaps was a key objective in this process.

Primary Aim: MyKnowledgeMap was asked to develop a skills gap analysis system for consultancy use so that through their sales team CIM could better analyse the training needs of their members and offer their corporate customers appropriate courses.

Key Challenges:

• Due to the nature of the product use, the training needs analysis needed to allow for multiple comparison levels so that the consultant could regularly update their competency levels after a set period of time during which the customers/members may have been on several courses. This was different from the other Skills Gap Systems that MKM had previously developed as they were updated on continual progress, whereas the CIM system would need to be able to look at the evolution of skills that had taken place over time, through a comparison of knowledge maps showing different stages in time, before and after courses etc.
• As it was to be used for personal consultancy work, the data from several organisations had to be included in the one system. Data from each organisation needed to remain separated from that of other organisations due to confidentiality issues but the system would still need to be very user friendly and have excellent navigation to facilitate the consultation between CIM and their client
• The skills gap system would need a 4-tier knowledge structure to encompass the huge variety of roles that their members perform. This would mean that aspects such as navigation, and reporting were going to be complex and that the differences between the different levels needed to be clear so that both the CIM and their end-user clients were able to understand the structure and its relevance.

Solution:

A 4-tiered skills gap system covering job area, scope, competencies, and task for standalone laptops was developed. Due to the enormous and potentially unmanageable number of reports that were now possible, the report formulation function was restricted to those that were most useful to the job in hand. These included showing which competencies were weakest across the business, averages per area/scope/competency/task for each job role or a general report for all staff at the competency level.

Post Implementation evaluation:

• A website version of this system was also developed but CIM decided that it was unnecessary and the personal TNA version was more efficient due to the conversations and advice that their staff were able to give along side of it
• The consultant would have to use the same laptop for each following consultation, as there was no synchronisation. This has since been developed and can be implemented so that the standalone laptop can update its newly received information into the main system
• The recommended courses were not allocated skill levels as on some of the other Skills Gap systems that MKM have developed. This meant that although the courses were appropriate for the client’s weak areas, the staff member’s presence was essential in defining the correct level of the course for each applicant