People competencies must be constantly upgraded or revised in organizations, since market conditi... more People competencies must be constantly upgraded or revised in organizations, since market conditions are constantly change . The importance of having systems and methods to make all aspects of the organization agile is critical. In knowledge industries, people competency plays a major role in the overall business. Systems and methods used to manage people competencies is a must therefore, enabling a quick change in competencies. This scenario is characterized by rapidly changing competency needs, a short time for building them, short scope of requirements, etc. Current methods focus on knowledge content whereas the change imposes changes in context, constraint peculiarities which do not largely impact the knowledge content. The impact is more visible in the application of knowledge, hence such training methods poorly enable competence to deal with change. Consequently, there is a need for low latency and high agility in people competency development pedagogies.
2016 Annual IEEE Systems Conference (SysCon), 2016
Competence building is a holistic concept. It involves not only known aspects such as knowledge, ... more Competence building is a holistic concept. It involves not only known aspects such as knowledge, ‘perceived experience’ and soft skills but also aspects that are not clearly known or understood such as cross influences between knowledge, skills and soft capabilities. Competence is the ‘ability to do’ work, whereas most training methods focus on imparting knowledge, which has a poor correlation to people performance in the roles they take up after education. Organizations need an assurance of good ‘ability to do’ in the people who join them. Systems Engineering being multidisciplinary in nature and application and the focus being ‘able to do’, the education pedagogies are to align with this. This paper analyzes this problem and looks at options to address the cross influences and enhance the ability to do in people. Based on the various pilots done and the study of the holistic aspects, this paper attempts to provide a pedagogy for this.
TENCON 2015 - 2015 IEEE Region 10 Conference, 2015
Strategy development and problem solving methods that are holistic and adaptable to all scenarios... more Strategy development and problem solving methods that are holistic and adaptable to all scenarios are needs of every one. Practice across the world is to derive contextual solutions that meet their specific scenarios and often work as temporary fixes. Holism and systemic qualities such as sustainability, reliability and adaptability are specifically to be targeted and not always derived by the approach taken.
2014 Information Technology Based Higher Education and Training (ITHET), 2014
Curricula definition is a key driver of the effectiveness of any Education program. It enables th... more Curricula definition is a key driver of the effectiveness of any Education program. It enables the identification of the right content that the students must become proficient in. This paper is based on the idea that education must impart both `knowledge' as also competence to deliver, in the work that he applies his learning on. What they must be able to do after the Education (outcomes) and the pedagogies used to impart education - all these are key inputs to the design of curricula. We find this reference to the idea of competence not reflected in literature on curricula design. This is important since employers tacitly look for is competence that derives out of knowledge. Therefore, the effectiveness of curricula derived on this basis and deployed through the defined pedagogy will be visible as good employability. Curricula design is therefore driven by these four parameters - knowledge, competence pedagogy and outcomes. This paper examines the design of curricula with employability and Competence as the key parameters. Literature has a lot of work on curricula design, most of these base the curricula on imparting related knowledge with little focus on building ability to do or Competence. This is potentially a reason for poor effectiveness and employability. Research done by the authors and the Pilot results achieved will be used to validate.
To implement innovation in an organization, it is essential to get the buy in from respective sta... more To implement innovation in an organization, it is essential to get the buy in from respective stakeholders. There are various stakeholders who will be involved in every phase of the innovation life cycle. Hence, there is a need for us to apply stakeholder engagement methodology (SEM) in each of those phases to ensure that the innovation process is complete and that the end users are benefitted as a result of innovation. This chapter describes the use of SEM for successful implementation of competence development framework (CDFW) during innovation diffusion phase in the organization. The authors of this chapter have used an innovation offering called CDFW to induct freshers into the project. CDFW will help freshers learn fast in less time, thus making them productive sooner. This chapter describes SEM and its phases in detail, while implementing CDFW is considered for case illustration. The chapter elaborates in detail various activities being carried out as part of CDFW implementation with the aid of SEM. The chapter focused on CDFW implementation during idea diffusion phase only. The advantages of SEM and CDFW are also presented as part of this chapter.
2013 12th International Conference on Information Technology Based Higher Education and Training (ITHET), 2013
ABSTRACT People in IT services Industry need capabilities which include technical and non technic... more ABSTRACT People in IT services Industry need capabilities which include technical and non technical skills. This requires an aptitude for “holistic learning”. The many dimensions of 'holistic learning' are imparting 'knowledge and understanding', 'technical application', 'work integration', 'human dimensions' such as - team interactions, motivation - 'developing passion' for the subject and 'learning to learn'. These skills are not sequential and independent, but interrelated, feeding back into each other. Competence to manage all these together to enable effective and efficient delivery of outcomes is the need of the IT Industry. The IT associate has to demonstrate these traits, early in his work as team interactions and personal traits like motivation, integrity and the like play a major role even in the early phases of his work cycle. This paper presents an approach to building a framework for 'holistic learning' and identifying pedagogies that will actually build technical competencies and non-technical traits, thereby facilitating integrated competence building. Studies and results of such pilots are discussed. The paper also includes a case study on small groups, which indicated that these non technical and personal traits are developed well when doing related work. Pedagogies that encompass technical competence building promote non-technical traits when they are suitably defined.
ABSTRACT Education covers a wide range of levels - from school to Mid-school to graduation and po... more ABSTRACT Education covers a wide range of levels - from school to Mid-school to graduation and post graduation. The dynamics of each of them is different. The paper discusses the prevailing education methods and the gaps, while imparting them. How Educational technologies while leveraging existing resources i.e. infrastructure, human resources etc., can build more efficient and effective academic institutions, to cater to the growing demands from various industries, is discussed, The paper also proposes a methodology and a set of guiding principles which when deployed are expected to address these to fill these gaps effectively. Ways to build scalable methods of imparting education and an ability to deliver are examined. Technical or skill specific education is a large subject. The paper focuses on Engineering Education. How can this be made effective to the times and scaled to address all those who need it.
ABSTRACT Learning methods and the right curricula are both critical for the development of right ... more ABSTRACT Learning methods and the right curricula are both critical for the development of right competence in individuals. Learning pedagogies practiced by traditional educational centers, universities and corporate training groups are largely based on the knowledge needed to perform various kinds of work/ roles. In the knowledge industry, where both competence and work definitions are intangibles and based on tacit understanding of deliverables, it is hard to design a curriculum that promises ability in individuals to build quality deliverables in the allowed time. Such competence is critical to the industry. In particular, the software industry today is seeing a lot of change in the environment and tools and techniques. The changes are rapid and dynamic. Methods of building competence in the individual needs focus, as the emergence of new methods, technologies resulted in paradigm shift in business. Building people with the right competence to deliver in short times is the need of the hour. Accordingly Training curricula and methods that can support such a scenario are critical to the survival and good performance of software organizations. The paper describes current educational practices, identifies the gaps along with the reasons for these gaps. The paper describes a methodology to bridge the gaps. The methodology explains how to identify the current user needs and required competencies, deriving competencies and how to build competencies. The paper also shares various concepts like Competency, Skill, Process Ability and Knowledge with definitions which are being used widely. The methodology enables one to understand the task to be accomplished with better clarity, thus resulting in higher productivity in less time.
People competencies must be constantly upgraded or revised in organizations, since market conditi... more People competencies must be constantly upgraded or revised in organizations, since market conditions are constantly change . The importance of having systems and methods to make all aspects of the organization agile is critical. In knowledge industries, people competency plays a major role in the overall business. Systems and methods used to manage people competencies is a must therefore, enabling a quick change in competencies. This scenario is characterized by rapidly changing competency needs, a short time for building them, short scope of requirements, etc. Current methods focus on knowledge content whereas the change imposes changes in context, constraint peculiarities which do not largely impact the knowledge content. The impact is more visible in the application of knowledge, hence such training methods poorly enable competence to deal with change. Consequently, there is a need for low latency and high agility in people competency development pedagogies.
2016 Annual IEEE Systems Conference (SysCon), 2016
Competence building is a holistic concept. It involves not only known aspects such as knowledge, ... more Competence building is a holistic concept. It involves not only known aspects such as knowledge, ‘perceived experience’ and soft skills but also aspects that are not clearly known or understood such as cross influences between knowledge, skills and soft capabilities. Competence is the ‘ability to do’ work, whereas most training methods focus on imparting knowledge, which has a poor correlation to people performance in the roles they take up after education. Organizations need an assurance of good ‘ability to do’ in the people who join them. Systems Engineering being multidisciplinary in nature and application and the focus being ‘able to do’, the education pedagogies are to align with this. This paper analyzes this problem and looks at options to address the cross influences and enhance the ability to do in people. Based on the various pilots done and the study of the holistic aspects, this paper attempts to provide a pedagogy for this.
TENCON 2015 - 2015 IEEE Region 10 Conference, 2015
Strategy development and problem solving methods that are holistic and adaptable to all scenarios... more Strategy development and problem solving methods that are holistic and adaptable to all scenarios are needs of every one. Practice across the world is to derive contextual solutions that meet their specific scenarios and often work as temporary fixes. Holism and systemic qualities such as sustainability, reliability and adaptability are specifically to be targeted and not always derived by the approach taken.
2014 Information Technology Based Higher Education and Training (ITHET), 2014
Curricula definition is a key driver of the effectiveness of any Education program. It enables th... more Curricula definition is a key driver of the effectiveness of any Education program. It enables the identification of the right content that the students must become proficient in. This paper is based on the idea that education must impart both `knowledge' as also competence to deliver, in the work that he applies his learning on. What they must be able to do after the Education (outcomes) and the pedagogies used to impart education - all these are key inputs to the design of curricula. We find this reference to the idea of competence not reflected in literature on curricula design. This is important since employers tacitly look for is competence that derives out of knowledge. Therefore, the effectiveness of curricula derived on this basis and deployed through the defined pedagogy will be visible as good employability. Curricula design is therefore driven by these four parameters - knowledge, competence pedagogy and outcomes. This paper examines the design of curricula with employability and Competence as the key parameters. Literature has a lot of work on curricula design, most of these base the curricula on imparting related knowledge with little focus on building ability to do or Competence. This is potentially a reason for poor effectiveness and employability. Research done by the authors and the Pilot results achieved will be used to validate.
To implement innovation in an organization, it is essential to get the buy in from respective sta... more To implement innovation in an organization, it is essential to get the buy in from respective stakeholders. There are various stakeholders who will be involved in every phase of the innovation life cycle. Hence, there is a need for us to apply stakeholder engagement methodology (SEM) in each of those phases to ensure that the innovation process is complete and that the end users are benefitted as a result of innovation. This chapter describes the use of SEM for successful implementation of competence development framework (CDFW) during innovation diffusion phase in the organization. The authors of this chapter have used an innovation offering called CDFW to induct freshers into the project. CDFW will help freshers learn fast in less time, thus making them productive sooner. This chapter describes SEM and its phases in detail, while implementing CDFW is considered for case illustration. The chapter elaborates in detail various activities being carried out as part of CDFW implementation with the aid of SEM. The chapter focused on CDFW implementation during idea diffusion phase only. The advantages of SEM and CDFW are also presented as part of this chapter.
2013 12th International Conference on Information Technology Based Higher Education and Training (ITHET), 2013
ABSTRACT People in IT services Industry need capabilities which include technical and non technic... more ABSTRACT People in IT services Industry need capabilities which include technical and non technical skills. This requires an aptitude for “holistic learning”. The many dimensions of 'holistic learning' are imparting 'knowledge and understanding', 'technical application', 'work integration', 'human dimensions' such as - team interactions, motivation - 'developing passion' for the subject and 'learning to learn'. These skills are not sequential and independent, but interrelated, feeding back into each other. Competence to manage all these together to enable effective and efficient delivery of outcomes is the need of the IT Industry. The IT associate has to demonstrate these traits, early in his work as team interactions and personal traits like motivation, integrity and the like play a major role even in the early phases of his work cycle. This paper presents an approach to building a framework for 'holistic learning' and identifying pedagogies that will actually build technical competencies and non-technical traits, thereby facilitating integrated competence building. Studies and results of such pilots are discussed. The paper also includes a case study on small groups, which indicated that these non technical and personal traits are developed well when doing related work. Pedagogies that encompass technical competence building promote non-technical traits when they are suitably defined.
ABSTRACT Education covers a wide range of levels - from school to Mid-school to graduation and po... more ABSTRACT Education covers a wide range of levels - from school to Mid-school to graduation and post graduation. The dynamics of each of them is different. The paper discusses the prevailing education methods and the gaps, while imparting them. How Educational technologies while leveraging existing resources i.e. infrastructure, human resources etc., can build more efficient and effective academic institutions, to cater to the growing demands from various industries, is discussed, The paper also proposes a methodology and a set of guiding principles which when deployed are expected to address these to fill these gaps effectively. Ways to build scalable methods of imparting education and an ability to deliver are examined. Technical or skill specific education is a large subject. The paper focuses on Engineering Education. How can this be made effective to the times and scaled to address all those who need it.
ABSTRACT Learning methods and the right curricula are both critical for the development of right ... more ABSTRACT Learning methods and the right curricula are both critical for the development of right competence in individuals. Learning pedagogies practiced by traditional educational centers, universities and corporate training groups are largely based on the knowledge needed to perform various kinds of work/ roles. In the knowledge industry, where both competence and work definitions are intangibles and based on tacit understanding of deliverables, it is hard to design a curriculum that promises ability in individuals to build quality deliverables in the allowed time. Such competence is critical to the industry. In particular, the software industry today is seeing a lot of change in the environment and tools and techniques. The changes are rapid and dynamic. Methods of building competence in the individual needs focus, as the emergence of new methods, technologies resulted in paradigm shift in business. Building people with the right competence to deliver in short times is the need of the hour. Accordingly Training curricula and methods that can support such a scenario are critical to the survival and good performance of software organizations. The paper describes current educational practices, identifies the gaps along with the reasons for these gaps. The paper describes a methodology to bridge the gaps. The methodology explains how to identify the current user needs and required competencies, deriving competencies and how to build competencies. The paper also shares various concepts like Competency, Skill, Process Ability and Knowledge with definitions which are being used widely. The methodology enables one to understand the task to be accomplished with better clarity, thus resulting in higher productivity in less time.
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Papers by Ravi Shankar