Skill management, checklist, training materials, skill areas and skill sectors.
The Competence Management module has all the logic and tools needed to create and improve a Knowledge Base in a large-scale organization. Knowledge is defined by the "skill" concept. Skills are described by their capabilities which must be possessed in order to reach a higher level in that skill. This means that each skill can be divided up into different levels and checked with yes/no statements. Skill levels can also be associated with different types of documentation and training materials. Skills are grouped into Competence Areas and these in turn are grouped into Competence Sectors.
Knowledge bases created in Panoptikon can be applied over very large domains; not only for the internal structure as the Skill Catalog can be portioned into three levels: Common shared base, Branch private and Process Specific. The first is managed by the General Competence Manager who is able to create Sectors and Areas (which have to be used by the branches) and the skills which he creates are shared across every private catalog. Branch Competence Managers can create their own private skills. Using this structure, it's possible to decide in each Panoptikon instance if the knowledge base is completely shared, totally private (business line orientated) or mixed. A third level can be creaetd for each process with some Areas being reserved for the Site Competence Managers which can autonomously manage their site-related skills.
The Competence Management module is a fundamental module in many Exagogica solutions. It is required to feed the Job Requirements module and its presence is necessary to perform any actions on the Skills environment. It's not mandatory, but recommended, for the Project Management module of the Projects environment, as project participation as leader and team member can be decided on the base of the project's skill requests and member capabilities on those skills. The Competence Management module can also be used as a stand-alone module as there is an interface available for users via the home page widget. The widget allows every member of the organization to examine the Knowledge Base and give their feedback on which competencies they have. This feedback can be validated by the Site Competence Manager, which also has the possibility to ask users for a survey on specific areas and/or sectors. Organization members can make suggestions for changes or new skills which should be added to the catalog. These requests are delivered to the Site Competence Manager, if the skill is process related, otherwise it is forwarded to the Branch Competence Manager for validation. Using this method, the module utilizes a full bottom-up approach to improve and nurture the Knowledge Base of the organization.