Competence Achievement Process (CAP) Model

Application

Why was it developed?

The CAP model was developed for being applied in the following four distinct use cases:

Career Self-Assessment: You have different skills, and you are at an individual career level in your profession. CAP allows you to figure better out how mature you already are in your profession as a whole and in the disciplines your profession breaks down to.
Foundation for Company Skill Matrix and Project Staffing: Most larger companies have a central knowledge base with a skill matrix (employee-axis, skill-axis, competence-cells), which can be used by managers for reasonable project staffing. The CAP model can be perfectly used as the underlying competence metric for such a skill matrix.
Indication for Company Job-Level & Salary-Range: Most companies have defined job models, which usually at least distinguish between job levels. During an application an assessment based on CAP allows a manager to get a reasonable indication which job level and salary range would be most appropriate for the applicant.
Indication for Employee Ranking Process: Some companies have an annual employee ranking process, which usually is at least one of the essential inputs for the annual promotion process. During the ranking process, assessments based on CAP allows a manager to get a better indication of the relative rank between employees.

Competence Context

Where can it be applied?

The CAP model always is applied to a particular competence context. This can be an arbitrary context, but typical contexts are:

a Profession
(for instance: Computer Science), or
a Discipline within a profession
(for instance: Software Architecture or Project Management), or
a Technology or Methodology within a discipline
(for instance: Java Programming or Effort Estimation).

The main difference between those competence contexts just is the actual duration one needs until one can reach the 100% competence level (Guru). From experience, we know that for a profession it usually is about 20 years, for a discipline it usually is about 8 years and for a technology or methodology it usually is about 2 years.

Competence Streams

Which competences are distinguished?

In CAP, we distinguish between four competence streams which orthogonal span the competence coordination system:

Knowledge: Competence through knowledge, indicated by the amount of bare theoretical knowledge you received about the competence context. Knowledge is usually achieved by either actively reading and studying or by passively being trained.
Practicability: Competence through practicability, indicated by the amount of current knowledge you effectively applied at least once in practice. Practicability is usually achieved by at least once exploring or testing knowledge in practice, even if it is still done in a training or laboratory environment.
Experience: Competence through experience, indicated by the amount of distinguished practical use cases of the competence context you experienced in practice. Experience is usually achieved by the repeated application of Knowledge and Practicability in real-world environments.
Leadership: Competence through leadership, indicated by the degree you were able to advance the state-of-the-art or body-of-knowledge of the competence context. Leadership is usually achieved by developing models, crafting innovative solutions, training others or publishing own findings.

Competence
Levels (X-axis)

How are the competence levels named?

In CAP, we distinguish between five competence levels which serve as the final main classification of a person:

Novice: You start as a Novice when you enter CAP. This phase usually lasts for the first 10% of the time until you can be a Guru in the competence context. In this phase, you usually strongly focus on the Knowledge competence stream only and just start with the Practicability stream.
Practitioner: You are at the Practitioner level between 10% and 25% of the time until you can be a Guru in the competence context. This level already lasts a little bit longer than the Novice level. In this phase, you usually strongly focus on the Practicability competence stream, just start with the Experience competence stream and finish the Knowledge competence stream.
Master: You are at the Master level between 25% and 50% of the time until you can be a Guru in the competence context. This level usually lasts as long as the Novice and Practitioner levels together. In this phase, you usually strongly focus on the Experience competence stream and just start with the Leadership stream.
Expert: You are at the Expert level between 50% and 100% of the time until you can be a Guru in the competence context. This level usually lasts as long as the Novice, Practitioner, and Master levels together. In this phase, you usually strongly focus on the Leadership competence stream while you still continuously extend the Experience competence stream.
Guru: Finally you are at the Guru level in the competence context. This level lasts forever. In this phase, you usually already primarily focus on other competence contexts, but still regularly extend the Experience and Leadership competence streams in this competence context.

Achievement
Levels (Y-axis)

How is competence achieved?

In CAP, the competence achievement can be distinguished on the four competence streams:

On Knowledge competence stream: At the time you start as a Novice, the whole body-of-knowledge of the competence context counts as 100%. The Knowledge achievement level then indicates how much of this initial knowledge you receive over time. As the body-of-knowledge of a competence context usually extends over time in parallel, you can effectively achieve more than 100% in the long-term.
You usually follow the following milestones:
1. You start as a Novice with 0% achievement and 0% competence.
2. You boost up to already 50% Knowledge achievement when you become a Practitioner at 10% competence.
3. You already reach 100% Knowledge achievement when you become a Master at 25% competence.
On Practicability competence stream: The Practicability achievement level indicates how much of your current Knowledge you already applied at least once in practice. Although your Knowledge over time extends 100%, you will never be able to apply more than 100% of this Knowledge in practice, of course.
You usually follow the following milestones:
1. You already reach 20% Practicability achievement when you become a Practitioner at 10% competence.
2. You boost up to already 80% Practicability achievement when you become a Master 25% competence.
3. You reach 100% Practicability achievement when you become an Expert at 50% competence.
On Experience competence stream: At the time you start as a Novice, the known possible use cases of the competence context count as 100%. The Experience achievement level indicates how many of these initial possible use cases of the competence context you experience repetitive in practice. As new possible use cases are discovered over time, you will be able to experience more than 100% in the long-term.
You usually follow the following milestones:
1. You already reach 20% Experience achievement when you become a Master at 25% competence.
2. You boost up to already 60% Experience achievement when you become an Expert 50% competence.
3. You slowly reach 100% Experience achievement during becoming a Guru.
On Leadership competence stream: The Leadership achievement level indicates how much you are advancing the current state-of-the-art or body-of-knowledge of the competence context yourself. Although the state-of-the-art might change over time, you will never be able to advance more than 100% of a competence discipline, of course.
You usually follow the following milestones:
1. You reach 10% Leadership achievement when you become an Expert at 60% Experience competence.
2. You climb up to 50% Leadership achievement when you become an Expert at 75% Experience competence.
3. You reach 90% to 100% Leadership achievement during becoming a Guru.

Usage

How to use it?

For self-assessment, CAP is usually used the following way:

Determine Context: You decide whether your competence context to assess is your profession, a discipline of your profession or a technology or methodology within a discipline of your profession.
Get Initial Indication: To get an early indicator, you check the amount of time you have already investigated into the competence context and locate a X-position on the year-timeline corresponding to the competence context.
Fine-Tune Achievement Level: Now you look upwards to the four competence streams and adjust your initial X-position according to the achievement levels you actually reached.
Know Your Competence Level: According to the X-position you now know what coarse competence level (Novice, Practitioner, Master, Expert, Guru) or fine competence level (1: N, 2: P, 3: M1, 4: M2, 5: E1, 6: E2, 7: E3, 8: E4, or 9: G) you have in the assessed competence context.