COMPETENCY MANAGEMENT: CONCEPTS, SYSTEMS AND CASE STUDIES

Valdemar W.Setzer

vwsetzer@ime.usp.br – www.ime.usp.br/~vwsetzer

This lecture starts with a definition of data. Then we present characterizations for information, knowledge and competency. An initial characterization for knowledge works very well for technical areas, but it has to be extended for purely intellectual areas such as History. We make a survey of the literature, and compare our characterizations with those of other authors. We show that competency is the confluence of a knowledge area with a skill. This leads to a matrix representation, where each cell may contain a degree of competency, knowledge or information. We present 2 systems we developed to collect competencies of Information Technology professionals, and how they are used to do competency management, which is a section of knowledge management. Our systems, designed to select professionals for building competency centers and project teams, have found a much wider and important application: the personal dissemination of knowledge. Thus, it provides the base for a practical knowledge management system.