The competitive world where RTX does business is in constant development and change. Staying competitive as an organization in these market conditions is challenging. It is important to offer the right technologies and to do so through the right market channels. But it is equally important to have the corresponding organization and skills to back this up.
The Engineering department has initiated a process that enables them to proactively assess current skills and technologies and determine any gaps in relation to the skills and technologies required by the overall business strategy.
Figure 1: Skills and Technology Assessment – The Big Picture
(Click picture so get larger picture)
Figure 1 illustrates how the organizational strategy maps to organizational skills. The overall strategy is supported by a set of business areas with individual targets and action plans, which are again supported by organizational units and individuals organized within these units. In parallel, the strategy defines a catalog of skills that are necessary for implementing the strategy. This is then broken down into common skills, skills groups and skills domains, and finally into the skills and knowledge mastered by the individual.
The process that RTX Engineering has implemented has two objectives:
- To assess the current individual and organizational skills level of the Engineering organization.
- To determine the gap between the current skills catalog, i.e. knowledge and technology, and the skills required to implement the business strategy and at what level of competence these must be mastered.
The process is composed of three activities.
- Self assessment of personal skills by each individual in the Engineering department. This data is compiled to provide a set of organizational skills and the organizational competence level for each skill.
- Through interviews, the RTX Business Units provide an assessment of the skills and technology that Engineering must provide to support their business strategy.
- The data is analyzed to find gaps between current skills levels and the skills levels required to support RTX BU strategies. Based on this analysis, action plans are developed to eliminate this gap.
This process enables a proactive management of human resources and technology. The results are visible action plans and clear goals for development of each individual skills group. This ensures, now and in the future, that RTX Engineering provides professional service that fulfills and supports the RTX business strategy.
