TABLE OF CONTENTS

1 Introduction....................................................................................................................................................................... 2
1.1 SFIA........................................................................................................................................................................... 2
1.2 Career Path............................................................................................................................................................... 2
2 Importance & Benefits of SFIA.................................................................................................................................. 3
2.1 Importance............................................................................................................................................................... 3
2.2 Benefits..................................................................................................................................................................... 3
3 Detailed description of the three roles...................................................................................................................... 4
3.1 ICT Category Manager........................................................................................................................................ 5
3.2 ICT Project manager............................................................................................................................................. 5
3.3 ICT senior Officer................................................................................................................................................. 6
4 Mapping matrix for the three roles............................................................................................................................. 7
4.1 ICT Category Manager........................................................................................................................................ 8
4.2 ICT Project Manager............................................................................................................................................ 8
4.3 ICT Senior Officer................................................................................................................................................. 9
5 Conclusion...................................................................................................................................................................... 10
6 Recommendations........................................................................................................................................................ 11
7 References....................................................................................................................................................................... 12
8 Appendix......................................................................................................................................................................... 14
1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 SFIA
To enhance the productivity of the project it is vital that workforce must acquire appropriate
skills and maintain standards so that right output can be produced. These skills are defined in a
framework named SFIA (Skills Framework for the Information Age). SFIA is helpful in
enhancing the skills as well as competencies which are required for ICT professionals. They are
also required in other fields such as digital transformation and software engineering (SFIA,
2021). Introduced in 2000, brings a framework under which the professionals get to know about
the required skills. Various levels of responsibilities via different characteristics such as
Influence, Complexity, Knowledge, Autonomy and Business skills are brought into existence
and enhanced details are provided to the professionals. Common standards which must be
followed by professionals are defined under this framework. SFIA is accessible to every
individual because of its simplicity and there exist no technical jargons which make it difficult to
understand for freshers in the industry. Along with the professional skills the communication
skills are also defined which helps to minimize the misunderstandings in different stakeholders.
The standardized framework helps to provide all professionals common techniques useful for the
enhancement of the skills and use them in the information industry.

1.2 CAREER PATH

To meet the standards and needs of the professional industry like every other fresher I also have
set a career path which is suitable for me as per my academic achievements. I am focusing on
initiating my career as a Category Manager. Moving forward I want to acquire the position of
ICT Project manager and finally ICT Officer. I plan to achieve these positions in the timespan of
10 years. This is helpful in boosting my experience as my technical knowledge is being used and
different categories are handled in ICT. Also, this is helpful in practicing the managerial skills.
Management of different teams is a must essential skill that must be acquired for better growth
and development in information technology.
The aim of the report is to explain what SFIA is and the benefits it brings in its application for
various organisations. Additionally, the report would portray three different roles that I identified
as my chosen positions in my academic career. A mapping matrix describing those three
positions is also depicted along with the conclusion of the findings by the mapping matrix and
how SFIA framework’s usage can be implemented to gain academic excellence.

2 IMPORTANCE & BENEFITS OF SFIA

2.1 IMPORTANCE
SFIA is important in handling the supporting skills. The primary importance of SFIA is given
below:

 SFIA plays an important role in identifying the skills that are needed by the organisation
and the supply chain as well.
 It is easily accessible, understandable and common in the skill management cycle which
is helpful in achievement of the success in variant projects.
 SFIA helps in achievements of skills that are integrated and thus beneficial for
information technology based organisations (Thönssen & von Dewitz, 2018).
 The risks related to the projects is reduced as IT professionals are provided with the
standardized skills and reduce the employee turnover by enhancing the efficiency as well
as quality of recruitment process.
 It is also updated frequently so that relevance and alignment to the needs of the
organisations are met.
 This framework helps in finding the appropriate training needs for the employees so that
appropriate levels and capability models are selected for the best output.

2.2 BENEFITS
There are various uses of SFIA in organisations that are mentioned below:
 ● Prediction of skills: SFIA provides a prediction of skills and levels of responsibilities
and provides the broader business under which goals related to work are met. It is the
framework under which the employees must obtain appropriate skills.

● Designing the target operating models: It helps in conduction of workspace planning

and validation of the proposed design structure. Use of SFIA is effective in analysis of
position/role and the mapping of the skills for the position. It also provides an overview
of the scope of the positions (Shankararaman & Gottipati, 2016).

● Creation of job and role profiles: The jobs that are aligned with the help of SFIA skills
are more useful as the complete skill management cycle is supported by them. The
productivity is affected positively and the risk for the business is reduced.

● Recruitment of required skills: SFIA is beneficial in acquiring people with the right
skill set for certain positions. The recruitment process is based on different methods such
as by resources and Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A).

● Choosing right person: The right individuals for the position and alignment of the job
with their skills and attributes is done through SFIA. It also provides job procurement
method that is the valuable diagnostic. The organisations can therefore assess the
individual skills in a manner for development planning (SFIA, 2021).

3 DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE THREE ROLES

The three roles that have been chosen as per the required time of entry level, after five years and
after ten years’ time span are listed below:

 Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Category Manager - Entry level

 ICT Project manager - After 5 years
 Senior ICT officer - After 10 years
3.1 ICT CATEGORY MANAGER
As an ICT category manager, the main responsibility is to enhance the sales so that businesses
obtain the profitability of the business. They are responsible for acquiring the sustainable growth.
They analyse the data or the insights that are received so that the trends of the consumer market
can be mapped (Nardelli, 2012). The other responsibilities are to devise the strategies for
development that are long-term for all the categories of product, to develop the exit strategies for
the unsuccessful projects that do not fit the consumer domain. The skills needed for this position
are listed below:

 This position also needs to ensure that the procurement service strategies are
exceptionally drafted, it includes both the hardware and the software management.
 Analytical skills must be acquired by the professionals along with knowledge of
appropriate forecasting method so that better decisions can be taken at the right time.
 The communication skills must be acquired by the category manager to ensure that all
stakeholders are provided with correct information.

3.2 ICT PROJECT MANAGER

The ICT Project manager revolves around the strategic and operational responsibilities. The
requirements for this position include a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or Business. In
addition to that, there is a requirement of many years of experience in the needed line of work. A
Project Manager Professional (PMP) certification is also important for the position of ICT
Project Manager (Enrique et al., 2018). A two year experience in the IT Managerial Position is
preferred by many organisations. The ITC project managers need to learn the technology that is
company specific.

The skills needed for this position are:

● Project Management such as understanding of software’s.

● Technological skills such as Programming languages, operating systems. This would be

helpful in managing projects that have web-based operations.

● Strategic skills so as to evaluate the IT strategies for the business goals of the
organisation.
 ● Risk Management skills that enable the IT Project Manager to assess the security
networks, security controls and also its implementation of the network (Lent &
Pinkowska, 2012).

● Communication skills so as to deliver the drafts for the technical concepts and issues.

3.3 ICT SENIOR OFFICER

An ICT Senior officer is responsible for providing support for systems that are technical,
professional and operational. The ICT services that are related to development, management and
the ICT decisions related to resources. The role of ICT senior officer is to supervise the
certification, maintenance and repairs of the Information and Communication Technology
systems. He also recommends the hardware and software for the equipment of ICT (Lindberg,
Nilsson, Zotterman, Söderberg & Skär, 2013). The admission, maintenance of the database and
the web server is administered and configured by him. The creation and the administering of the
user control and permissions are handled by the ICT senior manager. The requirements that are
set for the position of ICT senior manager is a minimum four year experience that is relevant in
the Public sector or the Private sector. A bachelor's degree is needed in the field of Information
Technology as well as certification from professional bodies such as CCNA, N+ etc. Proficiency
in the Computer Application is also needed. The main skills for ICT senior officer are:

● The officer must have problem solving and analytical skills through which better
solutions to the problems can be identified easily.

● Efficient communication skills as interaction between senior management and employees

need to be made.

● Mindfulness related to preventive maintenance must be implemented so that security

systems can be enhanced with advancement.
4 MAPPING MATRIX FOR THE THREE ROLES

The report depicts the mapping matrix done for the three roles of profession correlating them
with their relevant level of responsibility and the skill code that each would acquire. There are
seven levels of responsibility in the SFIA.

These enable not only the career recognition but also helps to provide a basis for the
organisations to relate to the SFIA framework. The attributes make the foundation for the
competencies and mapping for a career path. These levels of responsibilities are used as a
framework for Information Technology and the community of software engineering. It allows
the integration of the different fields of professional work using these levels as a basis
(Shankararaman & Gottipati, 2016).

 To map the identified roles after level 7 responsibilities are recognized, behavioral factors
and context and attributes are categorized.
 The behavioral factors are categorized as per collaboration, creativity, communication,
decision making, delegation, execution performance, influence, leadership and problem
solving.
 For reviewing the content is categorized as a prototype.
After mapping the three roles that are ICT Category Manager, ICT Project Manager and the ICT
Senior officer. The level of responsibility shared by them was matched according to their SFIA
skill code (Zuppo, 2012).

4.1 ICT CATEGORY MANAGER

ICT Category Manager has a 4 level of responsibility. The level 4 of responsibility shows the
Category manager has a clear direction for following the framework of responsibility. The
autonomy exercised by the Category manager is substantial in terms of the branch it is based in.
The objectives as well as processes are planned and executed independently by the Manager.
This level of responsibility accounts for a wide spectrum of complicated technical work and is
resolved by the Category manager. He also has a unique understanding for the generic industry
as well as the specialist in the ICT (SFIA, 2021).

The SFIA skill codes for the Category Manager are DBAD, SYSP, ITOP and ITMG.

- DBAD is the skill for Database Administration that helps in the management of the software,
for investigating the problems, forming logical database and to create the required reports (SFIA,
2021).

- SYSP stands for System Software. This skill is required to identify the actions that hold merit
as well as in reviewing the software updates of the system. It helps to maximise the hardware
functionality and thus aids in installation of new software for the system (SFIA, 2021).

- ITOP is the skill code for IT Infrastructure and shows the technical expertise in the right
application of the processes that are operational in nature. It also puts input in the maintenance
planning and the work related to the installation processes (SFIA, 2021).

- ITMG is the required skill code for IT management and shows the requirement of responsibility
for the installation, maintenance and the effective usage of the IT infrastructure so that the
performance of the Organisation is not affected (SFIA, 2021).
4.2 ICT PROJECT MANAGER
ICT Project Manager has a 6 level of responsibility with the SFIA skill codes INAN, SCTY and
SWDN. Level 6 of responsibility shows a defined accountability and the area of authority. This
includes all the categories such as technical, quality and financial aspects. It focuses on the
objectives that are set by the organisation and also the responsibilities for every individual. This
level of responsibility depicts a wide understanding of business and also the specialist fields of
the respective position that is the Project manager in the area of ICT. The tasks that are done are
highly complex and require an adept understanding of the technology that is organisation
specific. The ICT project manager with a level 6 of responsibility would understand the
developments related to the specific industry and also the impact the technology would have
(SFIA, 2021).

Skill code

- INAN code stands for Analytics. This skill is required for the development of policies that are
based on analytics and standards. It also helps in analyzing the data to further create the insights
for making correct decisions for the organisation (SFIA, 2021).

- SCTY is the skill code for Information Security. It is required in the information policy for
security and also the development and communication of the same. The organisational standards
depend on the Information Security (SFIA, 2021).

- SWDN stands for Software Design which helps in selecting the software design methods that
are adequate and have agile approaches which are predictive and adaptive in nature (SFIA,
2021).

4.3 ICT SENIOR OFFICER

The ICT senior officer has a level 7 of responsibility with the SFIA skill codes BUAN,EMRG,
HWDE, ITSP and UNAN. Level 7 of responsibility is the highest level that displays the supreme
organisational level and high authority over areas of work that are significant. This level of
responsibility has a full accountability for the actions and decisions that are taken by the position,
therefore are important to the organisation. It also shows competency for inspiring the
organisation by influencing the developments at the high level. The implementation of strategy
and a high level of leadership skills are depicted. This level also ensures that all the skills and
requirements of the organisation are met fully for its development and progress (SFIA, 2021).

The skill codes that are appropriate for the ICT senior officer are EMRG, DLMG and ITSP
(SFIA, 2021).

- DLMG is the skill code for System Development Management which shows the
organisation’s management framework for developing the systems. It also helps in aligning the
business strategy that are connected to the digital opportunities for the organisation (SFIA,
2021).

- EMRG is the skill code for Emerging Technology Monitoring which shows the planning for
assessing and identifying any potential impact for the organisation as well as include the
opportunities and threats (SFIA, 2021).

- ITSP stands for Strategic Planning. It requires the implementation of the management
network that are strategic for the organisation and thus supports the requirement for the same
business (SFIA, 2021).

5 CONCLUSION

Thus it can be concluded from the report that to grow in IT industry it is important that for better
growth specific skills must be adopted that are defined by SFIA. The three roles that are being
identified for my growth are ICT Category Manager, ICT Project Manager and ICT Senior
Officer. In addition to that, it is also observed that these three roles have an entry level, 5 years
experience and 10 years experience requirements. SFIA skills are important for assessing the
individual’s attributes and their capability for the required position. The skill set is integrated in
such a way that it is beneficial for the organisation. The SFIA framework thus helps in job
creation and providing the right position for the individual. Further, the report discussed the
seven levels of responsibility and the SFIA skill code for the specific job position. The three
roles have different levels of responsibility and SFIA skill codes. The ICT Category Manager
have a level 4 of responsibility and thus shows an adequate amount of authority for the specific
field it is in. It also depicted the technical problems to be solved by the ICT Category Manager.
The skill codes that were possessed by the ICT Category Manager were DBAD, SYSP, ITMG
and ITOP. These skills are necessary for the position of the Category manager as they focus on
the important aspects of Database Administration, System Software, IT Management and IT
Infrastructure. After that, the mapping matrix found that the ICT Project manager depicted a
level 6 of responsibility with a set of skill codes INAN, SCTY and SWDN. This level of
responsibility showed that certification was an important requirement for the position and also
the understanding of the technology that was organisation specific. Lastly, the ICT Senior officer
that would require a 10 year experience in the respective fields had a level 7 of responsibility
with the skill codes EMRG, DLMG and ITSP. The level 7 of responsibility is the highest level in
organisation and shows supreme accountability and authority in Emerging Technology, System
Development Management and Strategic Planning. Therefore, the report concluded that every
target role selected responds to a level of responsibility and also the skill code that is required for
the development of the organisation as well as the progress of the individual.

6 RECOMMENDATIONS

The SFIA framework is essential in assessing the skills that are required by a job position. I
would use it to build my profile at Linkedin. The SFIA skills should be mapped according to the
job position and be beneficial in a competency based recruitment process. I would learn the skills
that are required for the positions of ICT Project manager and ICT Senior officer. The desired
skills that are required for an ICT Project manager would be learnt by me in detail with the
appropriate certification so that I am eligible for the position with the required work experience
and exposure. I would also use SFIA skills to learn specific skills such as Emerging Technology
and Strategic planning. These skills would help me prepare myself for the position of ICT Senior
officer.
7 REFERENCES

Day, A., Paquet, S., Scott, N., & Hambley, L. (2012). Perceived information and communication
technology (ICT) demands on employee outcomes: The moderating effect of
organizational ICT support. Journal Of Occupational Health Psychology, 17(4), 473-491.
doi: 10.1037/a0029837

Enrique, D., Ayala, N., Lima, M., Marodin, G., Gzara, L., & Frank, A. (2018). The use of ICT
tools to support collaborative product development activities: evidences from Brazilian
industry. Production, 28(0). doi: 10.1590/0103-6513.20170099

Lent, B., & Pinkowska, M. (2012). Soft skills needed in the ICT project management -
classification and maturity level assessment. International Journal Of Applied Systemic
Studies, 4(3), 168. doi: 10.1504/ijass.2012.051133

Lindberg, B., Nilsson, C., Zotterman, D., Söderberg, S., & Skär, L. (2013). Using Information
and Communication Technology in Home Care for Communication between Patients,
Family Members, and Healthcare Professionals: A Systematic Review. International
Journal Of Telemedicine And Applications, 2013, 1-31. doi: 10.1155/2013/461829

Nardelli, G. (2012). The Complex Relationship between ICT and Innovation in Services: A
Literature Review. Lecture Notes In Business Information Processing, 1-24. doi:
10.1007/978-3-642-32270-9_1

Shankararaman, V., & Gottipati, S. (2016). Mapping information systems student skills to
industry skills framework. 2016 IEEE Global Engineering Education Conference
(EDUCON). https://doi.org/10.1109/educon.2016.7474561
SFIA. (2021). Strategic Planning. Retrieved 17 August 2021,
https://sfia-online.org/en/sfia-7/skills/strategic-planning

Thönssen, B., & von Dewitz, M. (2018). A Label is not enough – Approach for an Enterprise
Architecture Role Description Framework. Procedia Computer Science, 138, 409-416.
doi: 10.1016/j.procs.2018.10.058
Zuppo, C. (2012). Defining ICT in a Boundaryless World : The Development of a Working
Hierarchy. International Journal Of Managing Information Technology, 4(3), 13-22. doi:
10.5121/ijmit.2012.4302
8 APPENDIX

Role LEVEL of responsibility SFIA Code

ICT Category Manager 4 DBAD

SYSP

ITMG

ITOP

ICT Project Manager 6 INAN

SCTY

SWDN

ICT Senior Officer 7 EMRG

DLMG

ITSP