Assembly 2002: Report on Discussions, Recommendations and Follow-up Feedback from the Members

By Markus Riesen

At the Assembly 2002 in Skotteveig the competency team (Rob and Markus) came back after on year more of investigating in researching and starting to prepare a big pilot-project in the German speaking countries Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

The first input was a short summary in repetition of some important points, which are summarized shortly as follows:

Reasons for a Competency Profile:

• gives us a complete picture of what people do in our professional field
• Gain of recognition with professions
• Legal and legislative& insurance
• Helps practitioners ‘self development’
• Can be a tool for continuing education courses
• Could be used for certification purposes

Again our working definition of competency:

Competency is the ability to mobilize in a professional situation the resources needed to perform.

The professional field: we start to construct our personal competencies:

• In a training, we learn and develop our resources, and learn to differentiate them
• Once we start working, we face a completely new learning process that urges us to create ones own competencies

Connection between the Competency Profile (CP) and Professional Field:

• The CP gives us the descriptive tools for a continuum from "beginner", "Advanced" till "Expert"
• The CP helps to differentiate what we want in the Education field and the Continuous Education field
• The CP leads us to begin to appreciate the abilities of "Experts" in the field

The next two days were used in a working group to exchange ideas about competencies and the process about the project. It became clear, that

…not all the participants of the working group have worked through the material of the competency group and therefore the level of knowledge was quite different

…a certain mistrust existed because for some, the transparency of the whole process was not guaranteed: who makes decisions in the whole process? who can contribute in which way to the process?

…there were also expressed some concerns about the methodological pathway that has been taken in the pilot-project

The working group also tried out a draft of a questionnaire (this questionnaire has been reformed completely after the assembly and now serves in its German version as questionnaire for the pilot-project).

The very strong and committed discussion let finally to the following motion, which was adopted by the Assembly:

Motion ‘That the Board and it’s committees continue to provide education to member organisations and to be very transparent about and receptive to issues relating to competency; and that the Board establish a reflective group and invite member organisation participation to review and give feedback on projects relating to competency.’

The following persons allowed their names to stand as members of the reflective group:

Andrea Wiener, Glenice Hall, Victoria Swann, Kathryn Goldman-Schuyler, Ilan Jacobsen, Marianne Lacina, Nadine Yasikoff, Bonnie Humiston

As a consequence of the discussions the competency group reduced the scale of its plan for the pilot-questionnaire.

In general the whole process at the assembly showed:

…an enlarging of the whole process is necessary
…the decision processes must become more transparent

Competency Profile Group

Post-Assembly 2002 Plans: outline of general Goals and plans:

• the members of the reflective groups are contacted and invited to support the process
  
  
• enhancing project management thinking/planning with corresponding proposals for the 2003 assembly
  
  
• after a meeting with our expert and a complete revision of the questionnaire used in Skotteveig, the German-language questionnaire will go out in November/December 02
  
  
• probably the results of the German-language pilot questionnaire will be available at the 2003 Assembly
  
  
• we have been invited to provide Competency Workshops and/or Round Table discussions at the 2003 assembly