Abstract:
A system and method for skill proficiencies acquisitions is presented. Job roles are compared with employee skill profiles to determine which skills a corresponding employee needs developed. A skill map is generated which includes skill development activity options. Skill development activity options may include attending a seminar, reading a book, or participating in a mentoring program. An employee selects a skill development activity that is suitable to his work routine and learning style. A skill proficiency rating is determined after the conclusion of the skill development activity. The new skill and proficiency rating are recorded in the employee&#39;s skill profile.

Description:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION  
         [0001]    1. Technical Field  
           [0002]    The present invention relates in general to a system and method for acquiring skill proficiencies. More particularly, the present invention relates to a system and method for customizing an employee skill development strategy corresponding to the employee&#39;s work routine and optimum learning style.  
           [0003]    2. Description of the Related Art  
           [0004]    Managers in modern business organizations have increasingly complex roles to perform in managing the various facets of the business organization. While managers differ greatly in the objectives and goals of their respective departments or areas, a key element that most managers deal with are the employees in their department or area and their efforts to maintain a competitive knowledge base.  
           [0005]    In evolving industries, a competitive employee knowledge base is essential to ensure an organizations&#39; success. Especially in rapidly moving industries, such as the technology industry, employees must frequently update their skills or the organization becomes uncompetitive and the employee becomes less marketable in the workforce.  
           [0006]    A challenge found in business today is enabling the workforce to acquire the proficiencies necessary to be competitive without impacting employee productivity. Traditional approaches that prescribe a “one solution fits all” methodology for attaining proficiencies may not be suitable for organizations that have employees with various work routines. For example, most class training and seminars are offered during daylight hours (first shift). An employee who works third shift may sleep during the day. The employee&#39;s sleep schedule is altered when he attends a seminar during the day and it may take him a few days to recover from the altered sleep schedule. During the recovery period, the employee&#39;s productivity may decrease.  
           [0007]    An additional challenge found in business today is enabling the workforce to acquire the proficiencies necessary to be competitive without compromising skill acquisition efficiency. For example, some employee&#39;s may be auditory (i.e. prefer words, or listening) while other employees may be visual (prefer pictures). Auditory employees may not retain a good deal of information during a presentation while visual employees may not retain a good deal of information listening to an audio tape.  
           [0008]    What is needed, therefore, is a way for an employee to create a customized skill acquisition strategy corresponding to the employee&#39;s work routine and learning style.  
         SUMMARY  
         [0009]    It has been discovered that skill maps may be used for employees to custom-build skill acquisition strategies by allowing employees to select skill acquisition options that correspond to their work routines and learning styles. Skill maps are constructs that enable a person to obtain proficiencies in skills by choosing from multiple strategies.  
           [0010]    Skill acquisition requirements for an employee are determined by comparing job roles and employee skill profiles. Job roles include codified skills and correspond to an organizations&#39; business needs. Employee skill profiles include skills corresponding to an employee&#39;s capabilities. The employee&#39;s skill profile may include skills that are not applicable to his current job role (job assignment). For example, a Java application programmer may have C++ experience from past work assignments or from other means of education (books, seminars, etc.). The employee&#39;s skill profile includes C++ related skills even though the employee is currently assigned to a Java application programmer job role.  
           [0011]    Employee skill profiles are compared with job roles to determine the required skills for the employee to develop. Skill maps are generated which correspond to the skill to be developed. A skill map includes five main sections that are a description section, a proficiencies section, an education section, a mentoring section, and an “other” section. The description section describes a skill to be developed, such as “support data mining activities.” The proficiencies section includes a list of what an employee should be proficient, such as “load and manage data from flat files or relational databases.” The proficiencies section may also be used for skill assessment and to track skill acquisition progress.  
           [0012]    The education section, mentoring section, and “other” section include ways to obtain proficiency of the corresponding skill. The education section includes in-house and offsite class offerings and may be configured to only show local classes. The mentoring section includes information about mentoring programs that an employee may participate. The mentoring program may include a list of objectives, such as “build a data mining base, perform data preparation, select and carry out appropriate analytical techniques and interpret output.” The “other” section includes other methods for an employee to develop a skill. For example, the “other” section may include books or articles to read, or may include web pages corresponding to an online tutorial.  
           [0013]    An employee reviews and selects one or more skill development activity options (i.e. read a book, attend a class, etc.) corresponding to his work routine and learning style. For example, if the employee is auditory, the employee may choose to listen to an audio tape. After the skill development activity concludes, the employee and manager assess the employee&#39;s skill proficiency and record the skill proficiency in the employee&#39;s corresponding employee skill profile.  
           [0014]    The job role structure also allows effective performance assessments. Employee skill profiles may include levels of proficiency (i.e. acquired, applied, mastered, etc.) for an individual skill. A skill assessment may be conducted using an employee&#39;s recent performance during a job assignment. For example, an employee may finish a “java application programmer” assignment, and the corresponding manager may assess the employee&#39;s performance using the codified skills in a “java application programmer” job role. The resultant skill assessment is incorporated into the employee&#39;s skill profile. Using job roles for skill assessments provides employees with immediate feedback as to their performance in specific, relevant skills.  
           [0015]    The foregoing is a summary and thus contains, by necessity, simplifications, generalizations, and omissions of detail; consequently, those skilled in the art will appreciate that the summary is illustrative only and is not intended to be in any way limiting. Other aspects, inventive features, and advantages of the present invention, as defined solely by the claims, will become apparent in the non-limiting detailed description set forth below.  
       
    
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS  
       [0016]    The present invention may be better understood, and its numerous objects, features, and advantages made apparent to those skilled in the art by referencing the accompanying drawings. The use of the same reference symbols in different drawings indicates similar or identical items.  
         [0017]    [0017]FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a job role structure applied in various business activities;  
         [0018]    [0018]FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an employee with a corresponding job role that includes core skills and functional skills;  
         [0019]    [0019]FIG. 3A is a diagram showing the difference in skills between an application programmer job role and a database administrator job role;  
         [0020]    [0020]FIG. 3B is a diagram showing specific functional skill details between two application programmer job roles;  
         [0021]    [0021]FIG. 4 is a diagram showing various job roles corresponding to a business&#39;s product or service offering;  
         [0022]    [0022]FIG. 5 is a diagram showing job roles used for capacity planning;  
         [0023]    [0023]FIG. 5 is a diagram showing the use of job roles to gauge an organizations ability to deliver a product or service;  
         [0024]    [0024]FIG. 6 is a flowchart showing steps taken in capacity planning;  
         [0025]    [0025]FIG. 7 is a diagram showing dynamic delivery of a new skill to an employee population;  
         [0026]    [0026]FIG. 8 is a flowchart showing steps taken in deploying new skills to employees;  
         [0027]    [0027]FIG. 9 shows a diagram using job roles to select an optimum employee match for new job role;  
         [0028]    [0028]FIG. 10 is a flowchart showing steps taken in identifying and sending skill development options;  
         [0029]    [0029]FIG. 11 is a diagram showing a skill map window that allows employees to customize skill development;  
         [0030]    [0030]FIG. 12 is a diagram showing a manager and employees assessing skill development; and  
         [0031]    [0031]FIG. 13 is a block diagram of an information handling system capable of implementing the present invention.  
     
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION  
       [0032]    The following is intended to provide a detailed description of an example of the invention and should not be taken to be limiting of the invention itself. Rather, any number of variations may fall within the scope of the invention which is defined in the claims following the description.  
         [0033]    [0033]FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a job role structure applied in various business activities. The job role structure and process provides companies with a way to predictably describe and understand capabilities needed to hire, develop, and manage human resources. A job role structure also defines professional services and consulting organizations&#39; resources in terms of recognized market standards and nomenclature. For example, a business consultant in the banking industry requires a set of knowledge relating to banking systems, banking industry issues, and banking regulation to effectively serve his customers. Building the job role in terms of these standards and nomenclature provides a common, industry-wide means of defining employees and their skills.  
         [0034]    Skills  100  includes skills which may be segmented into two categories, core skills and functional skills. Core skills are profession specific skills and functional skills define a job role in more detail. For example, an information technology (IT) profession core skill may be “teamwork” and a functional skill may be “algorithm design” (see FIG. 2A for further detail regarding core skills and functional skills).  
         [0035]    Job roles are defined (Job role  110 ) using skills  100  and input from business opportunity  120  and business solution  130 . Business opportunity  120  includes existing business of an organization or opportunities that an organization is pursuing. Business solution  130  includes a product or service offering from an organization to satisfy business opportunity  120 . For example, business opportunity  120  may be supplying personal computer parts and business solution  130  may be a computer hard drive.  
         [0036]    Job role  110  includes core skills specific to a given profession and functional skills specific to business opportunity  120  and business solutions  130 . Business opportunity  120  is analyzed to determine which functional skills are required for a given job role. For example, a business opportunity may be “supplying a java based software program” in which a functional skill for an application programmer job role may be “to be proficient at the java programming language.” 
         [0037]    Business solution  130  is also analyzed to determine which functional skills are required for a given job role. Using the example described above, an organization may have an existing java software product in which a functional skill for a technical sales job role may be “to understand how the java software product works.” 
         [0038]    Skill profile  140  incorporates skills  100  with employee  150 &#39;s capabilities. Using the example described above, if an employee is proficient at java programming, then a java programming skill from skills  100  is included in the corresponding employee&#39;s skill profile.  
         [0039]    Skill profile  140  may include levels of proficiency for individual skills (i.e. acquired, applied, mastered, etc.). A skill assessment (skill assessment  160 ) may be conducted using employee  150 &#39;s performance relative to a recent job assignment (job role  110 ). For example, an employee may finish a “java application programmer” assignment. The corresponding manager (manager  155 ) may assess employee  150 &#39;s performance using the specified skills in a “java application programmer” job role. The resultant skill assessment is incorporated into employee  150 &#39;s skill profile (skill profile  140 ). Using job roles for skill assessment allows immediate feedback in relevant areas (see FIG. 12 for further details regarding skill assessment)  
         [0040]    Job roles and skill profiles may be used to gauge an organizations ability to deliver new services or bid on new opportunities. For example, an organization may have the opportunity to bid on an information technology infrastructure contract that requires  200  java application programmers. The organization may only have  150  employees with a “java application programmer” job role but may have other employees that require minimal training to be a java application programmer. Skill profiles (skill profile  140 ) of each employee may be compared with a “java application programmer” job role (job role  110 ) to determine how much skill development is necessary to have fifty more employees satisfy the java application job role requirement and effectively plan capacity. (capacity planning  170 ) (see FIG. 5 for further details regarding capacity planning). Once an organization understands the amount of skill development required to offer a product or service, the organization may provide various ways for employees to develop the skills (new skill delivery  180 ).  
         [0041]    Job roles and skill profiles may be used to determine which employees need to develop a new skill. For example, an organization may be in the java software business and may require each programmer to understand a new aspect of the java language, such as “Java Swing.” The new skill is added to the programmer job role (job role  110 ). Each programmer&#39;s skill profile (skill profile  140 ) is compared with “amended” job role  110  to determine which employees require new skill development (new skill delivery  180 ).  
         [0042]    Some employee&#39;s may already have the new skill. Using the example described above, a programmer may have attended a “Java Swing” conference or read a Java Swing article to develop the Java Swing skill.  
         [0043]    Employees that require new skill development are offered various ways in which to develop new skills. For example, an employee may frequently travel and may develop a skill more easily by reading a book instead of attending a three day seminar (customized skill development  190 ) (see FIG. 10 regarding new customized skill development).  
         [0044]    Once the employee (employee  150 ) develops the new skill, his skill profile (skill profile  140 ) is updated to reflect his new capabilities.  
         [0045]    [0045]FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an employee with a corresponding job role that includes core skills and functional skills. Job role  210  specifies skills required for employee  200  to effectively perform his existing job. Job role  210  includes two sections which are core skills  240  and functional skills  220 .  
         [0046]    Core skills  240  are general-purpose skills that employee  200  needs to effectively conduct business within a chosen profession. A profession defines a career path and the required core skills for competency in a chosen occupation. The profession sets a long-term path for an employee that may span an entire career. Professions are stable, externally recognizable, and transferable between different situations.  
         [0047]    Core skills may be categorized into three areas which are business, leadership, and relationship. Employees in different professions may have similar core skills. However, specific core skills (core skill  250 ) may require more proficiency depending on the profession. For example, an application programmer and a salesperson may have a “customer relationship management”core skill since both employees may interact with customers. However, the salesperson should be more proficient at customer relationship management to perform his job effectively.  
         [0048]    Functional skills  220  enable an employee to become specialized in a chosen profession. Functional skills have a narrower focus and may be acquired in a shorter time than core skills, better lending themselves to acquisition through focused education and mentoring programs. Using the example described above, functional skill  230  for an application programmer may be “algorithm design.” 
         [0049]    Functional skills focus on specific products, technologies, industry issues, or company-specific processes and services. Their relevance may be of short time duration due to changing technology or business needs. Functional skills may be applicable to a specific company or a few companies within an industry.  
         [0050]    [0050]FIG. 3A is a diagram showing the difference in skills between an application programmer job role and a database administrator job role. Application programmer job role  300  includes core skills ( 325 ) and functional skills ( 326 ). Database Administrator (DBA) job role  320  includes core skills ( 325 ) and functional skills ( 348 ). Application programmer job role  300  and DBA job role  320  both include identical core skills  325  since core skills  325  are fundamental skills needed to be in the information technology specialist profession.  
         [0051]    Functional skills enable specialization that may correspond to the type of industry, products, services, technologies, or processes. Application programmer job role  300  includes functional skills  326  which are general application programmer functional skills, such as “algorithm design.” Application programmer job role  300 &#39;s functional skills are skill  328 , skill  330 , skill  332 , and skill  334 .  
         [0052]    DBA job role  320  includes functional skills  348  which are general database administrator functional skills, such as “database management.” DBA  320 &#39;s functional skills are skill  328 , skill  330 , skill  345 , skill  347 , and skill  348 .  
         [0053]    As can be seen, skill  328  and skill  330  are common between an application programmer and a database administrator. Skill  332  and skill  334  are unique to an application programmer. Skill  345  and skill  347  are unique to a database administrator.  
         [0054]    Career planning is easily performed using structured job roles. If an application programmer strives to be a database administrator, the application programmer needs to develop skill  345  and skill  347 . Skill  345  and skill  347  may be mapped into a concise job role format which identifies the required skills for an application programmer to become a DBA (uplift skills  310 ). Uplift skills  310  includes skill  335  and skill  337  which correspond to skill  345  and skill  347  respectively. An application programmer may review uplift skills  310  to identify which additional skills are required to be a database administrator.  
         [0055]    [0055]FIG. 3B is a diagram showing specific functional skills between two application programmer job roles. Application programmer job role  350  shows a job role template for an application programmer. A template defines the internal structure and a general skill definition for a specified job role. Functional skills in application programmer job role  350  include two types, general skills (skill  355  and skill  357 ) and specialized skills (skill  360  and skill  362 ). For example a general skill for an application programmer may be “algorithm design” and a specialized skill may be based on a specific programming language, such as C++.  
         [0056]    When a template is instantiated into an actual job role definition, such as a “Java application programmer” or a “C++ application programmer”, general skills are common between the two job roles. However, specialized skills may be different. C++ programmer job role  365  includes general skills  375  and  377  which correspond to skill  355  and skill  357 . C++ programmer job role  365  also includes specialized skill  370  and skill  372  which are specific to the C++ programming language. For example, skill  370  may be “developing C++ data structures.” 
         [0057]    Java programmer job role  380  includes general skills  385  and  387  which correspond to skill  355  and skill  357 . Java programmer  380  also includes specialized skills  390  and  392  which are specific to the Java programming language. Specialized skills are more specific than general application development skills and focus on the particular job role.  
         [0058]    [0058]FIG. 4 is a diagram showing various job roles corresponding to a business&#39;s product or service offering. Job roles may be linked to an organization&#39;s product or service offering by specifying required skills based upon the product or service. Job roles provide organizations with a means to inventory employee skill profiles which may be used to understand, plan, and forecast the extent of the organization&#39;s ability to deliver and support its product or service offering.  
         [0059]    Business offering  400  includes three services which are customer assessment  410 , development  420 , and integration  430 . Customer assessment  410  may include understanding a customers&#39;requirements and limitations. Development  420  may include developing a customized software program for the customer. Integration  430  may include integrating the developed software program into the customers&#39;computer system.  
         [0060]    Skills relating to customer assessment  410 , development  420 , and integration  430  are mapped into corresponding job roles. Consultant  470  includes skills  440  which correspond to the skills required to perform a customer assessment, such as “understanding customer requirements and limitations.” Developer  480  includes skills  450  which correspond to the skills required to develop a customized software program, such as “understand hash tables.” Infrastructure designer  490  includes skill  460  which correspond to the skill required to integrate software into a customers&#39;computer system, such as “translating scripts.” 
         [0061]    An organization has a means to understand, plan, and forecast its&#39;ability to offer a product or service by determining the number of employees who have specific skills corresponding to the product or service offering (see FIG. 5 for further details regarding capacity planning analysis).  
         [0062]    [0062]FIG. 5 is a diagram showing the use of job roles to gauge an organizations ability to deliver a product or service. The set of job roles required to deliver the product or service is compared with the skill profiles of employee population  500 . Job role  510 , job role  530 , and job role  550  are job roles required to deliver a product or service. For example, an organization may offer customized software solutions and the job roles may be a developer, a consultant, and an infrastructure designer.  
         [0063]    Employee skill profiles corresponding to employee population  500  are matched with job role skills included in job role  510  (see FIG. 6 for further details regarding skill matching). Using the example described above, job role  510  may be a “developer.” The matched results are included in table  515 . Box  518  shows the number of employees that match each skill included in job role  510  (1,000 employees). In many cases, the number of employees that match each skill may not be sufficient to offer a product or service. In order to achieve a sufficient number of employees to offer a product or service, training may be required. Therefore, a comparison may be performed to determine the number of employees that match a number of the job role skills. Minimal training may then be performed with the employees that have the most job role skill matches.  
         [0064]    Box  520  shows the number of employees that are missing one skill in job role  510  (100 employees). Box  522  shows the number of employees that are missing two skills in job role  510  (200 employees). Box  524  includes the total number of employee skill profiles compared to job role  510  (1,300 employees). Box  526  includes the number of resources required to meet job role  510  to offer the product or service (1,050 employees). Box  528  includes the gap or surplus of employees that match all job role skills (gap of 50 employees) relative to the number of resources needed in box  526 . Using the example described above, the organization requires fifty more employees to obtain “developer” skills in order to support its&#39;business opportunities.  
         [0065]    In another embodiment, counting the number of employees that lack more than two skills in job role  510  may be required to obtain a sufficient number of employees to offer a product or service. An analysis may then be performed on the training costs of employees to determine if offering the product or service will be profitable.  
         [0066]    Employee skill profiles corresponding to employee population  500  are matched with job role skills included in job role  530  (see FIG. 6 for further details regarding skill matching). Using the example described above, job role  530  may be a “consultant.” The matched results are included in table  535 . Box  538  shows the number of employees that match each skill included in job role  530  (300 employees). In many cases, the number of employees that match each skill may not be sufficient to offer a product or service. In order to achieve a sufficient number of employees to offer a product or service, training may be required. Therefore, a comparison may be performed to determine the number of employees that match a number of the job role skills. Minimal training may then be performed with the employees that have the most job role skill matches.  
         [0067]    Box  540  shows the number of employees that are missing one skill in job role  530  (30 employees). Box  542  shows the number of employees that are missing two skills in job role  530  (50 employees). Box  544  includes the total number of employee skill profiles compared to job role  530  (380 employees). Box  546  includes the number of resources required to meet job role  530  to offer the product or service (315 employees). Box  548  includes the gap or surplus of employees that match all job role skills (gap of 15 employees) relative to the number of resources needed in box  546 . Using the example described above, the organization requires 15 more employees to obtain “consultant” skills in order to support its&#39; business opportunities.  
         [0068]    In another embodiment, counting the number of employees that lack more than two skills in job role  530  may be required to obtain a sufficient number of employees to offer a product or service. An analysis may then be performed on the training costs of employees to determine if offering the product or service will be profitable.  
         [0069]    Employee skill profiles corresponding to employee population  500  are matched with job role skills included in job role  550  (see FIG. 6 for further details regarding skill matching). Using the example described above, job role  550  may be an “infrastructure designer.” The matched results are included in table  555 . Box  558  shows the number of employees that match each skill included in job role  550  (200 employees). In many cases, the number of employees that match each skill may not be sufficient to offer a product or service. In order to achieve a sufficient number of employees to offer a product or service, training may be required. Therefore, a comparison may be performed to determine the number of employees that match a number of the job role skills. Minimal training may then be performed with the employees that have the most job role skill matches.  
         [0070]    Box  560  shows the number of employees that are missing one skill in job role  550  (20 employees). Box  562  shows the number of employees that are missing two skills in job role  550  (40 employees). Box  564  includes the total number of employee skill profiles compared to job role  550  (260 employees). Box  566  includes the number of resources required to meet job role  550  to offer the product or service (180 employees). Box  568  includes the gap or surplus of employees that match all job role skills (surplus of 20 employees) relative to the number of resources needed in box  566 . Using the example described above, the organization has a surplus of 20 infrastructure designers corresponding to the amount of its&#39; business opportunities. The organization may decide to place the 20 infrastructure designers on existing projects to complete them more quickly or train the 20 infrastructure designers to be consultants or developers.  
         [0071]    In another embodiment, counting the number of employees that lack more than two skills in job role  550  may be required to obtain a sufficient number of employees to offer a product or service. An analysis may then be performed on the training costs of employees to determine if offering the product or service will be profitable.  
         [0072]    [0072]FIG. 6 is a flowchart showing steps taken in capacity planning. Processing commences at  600 , whereupon a first job role is selected from job role store  610  (step  605 ). The job role may correspond to a business need, such as a business opportunity or a business solution. Job role store  610  may be stored in a non-volatile storage area, such as a computer hard drive. A first employee skill profile is retrieved from skill profile store  620  at step  615 . The skill profile includes an employee&#39;s developed skills and may include a level of proficiency of the skill. For example, an employee may have mastered “algorithm design” in which an “algorithm design” skill is included in the employees&#39; skill profile with a proficiency rating of “mastered.” Skill profile store  620  may be stored on a non-volatile storage area, such as a computer hard drive.  
         [0073]    A first skill corresponding to the retrieved job role is selected at step  625 . The first skill may be a core skill or a functional skill. If the job role core skills and the employee core skills (i.e. the same profession) are identical, core skill matching may be bypassed and processing may focus on functional skill matching.  
         [0074]    The first job role skill is matched with the first employee&#39;s skill profile (step  630 ). The employee may be in a different job role than the job role under review, but may match the job role skill. For example, the job role under review may be a Java application programmer with a job role skill of “understanding Java programming language.” The employee under review may have a job role of “Java User Interface Designer” that also has a job role skill of “understanding Java programming language.” Another example is an employee may develop a skill independently of his job role. Using the example described above, a sales job role may not be required to have a skill of “understanding Java programming language” but a salesperson may have acquired the skill through books in order to perform his job more effectively.  
         [0075]    A determination is made as to whether the employee has the first job role skill (decision  640 ). If the employee does not have the job role skill, decision  640  branches to “No” branch  642  bypassing store matching steps. On the other hand, if the employee has the job role skill under review, decision  640  branches to “Yes” branch  648  whereupon the skill match is stored corresponding to the employee skill profile in match store  655 . Match store  655  may be stored in a non-volatile storage area, such as a computer hard drive.  
         [0076]    A determination is made as to whether there are more skills to evaluate in the job role under investigation (decision  660 ). If there are more skills to evaluate, decision  660  branches to “Yes” branch  662  which loops back to select (step  665 ) and process the next skill. This looping continues until there are no more skills to evaluate, at which point decision  660  branches to “No” branch  664 .  
         [0077]    A determination is made as to whether there are more employee records to analyze for the job role under investigation (decision  670 ). If there are more employee skill profiles to analyze, decision  670  branches to “Yes” branch  672  which loops back to retrieve (step  675 ) and process the next employee record. This looping continues until there are no more employee records to analyze, at which point decision  670  branches to “No” branch  674 .  
         [0078]    A determination is made as to whether there are more job roles to investigate (decision  680 ). For example, an organization may want to expand its web page offering and want to analyze a graphic designer job role, a database administrator job role, and a programmer job role. Each job role and its corresponding job role skills are compared with the organization&#39;s employee skill profiles to determine if the organization has enough resources for each of the three job roles to expand its web page offering.  
         [0079]    If there are more job roles to investigate, decision  680  branches to “Yes” branch  682  which loops back to retrieve (step  685 ) and process the next job role. This looping continues until there are no more job roles to investigate, at which point decision  680  branches to “No” branch  684 . A report is generated at step  690  and stored in report store  692  that includes the number of employees that match each skill in the job roles investigated (step  690 ). The report may also provide detail as to how many employees are missing one or two skills in a particular job role. If multiple job roles were investigated, the report may include separate sections for each job role and how many employees matched each skill in the particular job role or the may highlight employees that match more than one job role. Employees who match more than one job role may be candidates for a project manager position.  
         [0080]    A business analysis is performed at step  694  which compares a cost of providing training for a selected number of employees with an “opportunity increase.” The cost of providing training is determined by analyzing the additional training needed for a selected number of employees in report store  692 . For example, employees may be selected that require training for a small number of skills (i.e. one or two skills).  
         [0081]    The opportunity increase is determined by analyzing the organizations business needs in business needs store  696 . For example, the opportunity increase may include increased revenue that an organization receives through business it may acquire by training the selected number of employees. Business needs store may be stored on a non-volatile storage area, such as a computer hard drive. Processing ends at  699 .  
         [0082]    [0082]FIG. 7 is a diagram showing dynamic delivery of a new skill to an employee population. In many industries, the knowledge domain rapidly evolves and skills are constantly refreshed to remain competitive. The job role structure allows dynamic reconfiguration of job roles so businesses may quickly react to industry changes.  
         [0083]    Current service offering  700  is supported by current job role  730 . Additional offering  710  is added to current offering  700  to stay competitive within the industry. For example, current service offering  700  may be a web page offering supporting Java and added offering  710  may be an added service to support Java “Swing.” A skill corresponding to the new service is defined (skill  720 ). Using the example described above, skill  720  may be “understand Java Swing.” 
         [0084]    Updated job role  740  includes skills corresponding to current job role  730  and includes skill  750  which corresponds to skill  720 . Skill  750  is deployed to employee population  760  that have current job role  730  (see FIG. 8 for further details regarding skill deployment). Some employees with the particular job role may already have the new skill. Using the example described above, some employees may be educated on Java Swing by attending a seminar or reading a book.  
         [0085]    [0085]FIG. 8 is a flowchart showing steps taken in deploying new skills to employees. Processing commences at  800 , whereupon a job role is retrieved from job role store  815  (step  810 ). The job role may be a job role that has a newly defined skill. For example, the job role may be a java application programmer job role and the newly defined skill may be “understand Java Swing.” Job role store  815  may be stored on a non-volatile storage area, such as a computer hard drive. A first employee skill profile is retrieved from skill profile store  825  at step  820 . Skill profile store  825  may be stored on a non-volatile storage area, such as a computer hard drive. The employee skill profile includes skills acquired by an employee and may include a level of proficiency corresponding to each skill.  
         [0086]    The skills corresponding to the job role are selected at step  830  and matched with the employee skill profile at step  840 . The selected skills may be all skills in the job role or a subset of the skills, such as newly defined skills. A determination is made as to whether the employee has developed each job role skill (decision  850 ). If the employee has developed each job role skill, decision  850  branches to “Yes” branch  858  bypassing skill requirement storing steps. On the other hand, if the employee has not developed each job role skill, decision  850  branches to “No” branch  852  whereupon a requisite for the employee to develop the unmatched skills is stored in skill deployment store  865  (step  860 ).  
         [0087]    In another embodiment, a determination may be made as to the proficiency level of the employee compared with the required proficiency level of the new skill. For example, if the job role under analysis is project manager and the new skill is to understand a spreadsheet program, the project manager may have to know how to enter data but not be required to write macro programs.  
         [0088]    A determination is made as to whether there are more employees with the job role under analysis (decision  870 ). If there are more employees with the job role under analysis, decision  870  branches to “Yes” branch  872  which loops back to retrieve (step  875 ) and process the next employee profile. This looping continues until there are no more employees with the job role under analysis, at which point decision  870  branches to “No” branch  878  whereupon skill development options are deployed (predefined process block  880 , see FIG. 10 for further details). Processing ends at  890 .  
         [0089]    [0089]FIG. 9 shows a diagram using job roles to select an optimum employee match for new job role. An organization develops bank infrastructure designer job role  900  to support a new opportunity. Bank infrastructure designer job role  900  requires skill  905 , skill  910 , skill  915 , skill  920 , and skill  925 . The organization may not have banking infrastructure designers but determines that an information technology (IT) architect job role is similar to a banking infrastructure designer job role.  
         [0090]    The organization compares three IT architect&#39;s employee skill profiles (IT Architect  930 , IT Architect  940 , and IT Architect  950 ) with job role  900 . IT Architect  930  has skill  920  and skill  925  but needs skill  905 , skill  910 , and skill  915  in order to meet the new job role. IT Architect  940  has skill  905 , skill  915 , skill  920 , and  925  but needs skill  910  in order to meet the new job role. IT Architect  950  has skill  905 , skill  910 , skill  920 , and skill  925  but needs skill  915  in order to meet the new job role.  
         [0091]    An analysis is performed to determine which employee is best suited to become a banking infrastructure designer. Table  960  shows the cost and time for IT Architect  930  to obtain the skills needed to meet the new job role requirements. Skill  905  costs $2,000 and takes three weeks to complete. Skill  910  costs $10,000 and takes six weeks to complete. Skill  915  costs $1,000 and takes two weeks to complete. Therefore, it costs $13,000 (box  965 ) for IT Architect  930  to meet the new job role requirement.  
         [0092]    Table  970  shows the cost and time for IT Architect  940  to obtain the skills needed to meet the new job role requirement. Skill  910  costs $10,000 and takes six weeks to complete. Therefore, it costs $10,000 (box  975 ) for IT Architect  940  to obtain the skills needed for him to meet the new job role.  
         [0093]    Table  980  shows the cost and time for IT Architect  950  to obtain the skill needed to meet the new job role requirement. Skill  915  costs $1,000 and takes two weeks to complete. Therefore, it takes $1,000 (box  985 ) for IT Architect  950  to obtain the skills needed to meet the new job role requirement.  
         [0094]    The organization reviews the total cost for each employee to obtain the skills needed to meet the new job role requirements and determines which IT architect is best suited for the new job role. In this embodiment, employee  950  is best suited for the new job role since it costs the least amount of money and takes the least amount of time for employee  950  to obtain the skills required to meet the new job role.  
         [0095]    [0095]FIG. 10 is a flowchart showing steps taken in identifying and sending skill development options. Processing commences at  1000 , whereupon a first skill requirement is retrieved from skill deployment store  1020  (step  1010 ). Skill deployment store  1020  may be stored on a non-volatile storage area, such as a computer hard drive. Information is retrieved regarding each employee required to acquire the first skill from skill deployment store  1020  at step  1030 . Employee information may be an employee identifier, such as a social security number or employee id number.  
         [0096]    Training information is retrieved from training store  1050  and skill acquisition options are identified (step  1040 ). Training store  1050  may be stored on a non-volatile storage area, such as a computer hard drive. Training store  1050  may include information corresponding to skill development, such as class offerings, mentor programs, articles, and books.  
         [0097]    Skill acquisition options may include an in-house class offering. An in-house class offering may be determined by analyzing the number of employees required to develop the skill, and determine whether it is less expensive to have an in-house class offering or have employees attend class offsite.  
         [0098]    Information corresponding to a first employee required to acquire the skill is selected at step  1060 . The employee information may be an email address or an office mail box number. The skill acquisition options are sent to employee  1075  at step  1070 . A determination is made as to whether there are more employees required to develop the first skill (decision  1080 ). If there are more employees to develop the first skill, decision  1080  branches to “Yes” branch  1082  which loops back to select (step  1085 ) and process the next employee information. This looping continues until there are no more employees required to develop the first skill, at which point decision  1080  branches to “No” branch  1088 .  
         [0099]    A determination is made as to whether there are more skills to develop (step  1090 ). For example, management may want to focus on web page development opportunities in which multiple new skills may be required to stay competitive in the industry. If there are more skills to develop, decision  1090  branches to “Yes” branch  1092  which loops back to retrieve (step  1095 ) and process the next skill. This looping continues until there are no more skills to develop, at which point decision  1090  branches to “No” branch  1098 . Processing ends at  1099 .  
         [0100]    [0100]FIG. 11 is a diagram showing a skill map window that allows employees to customize skill development. Skill maps allow employees to take a non-traditional approach to skill development. Employees may have multiple ways to develop a skill instead of being limited in their ability to develop the skill. For example, it may be difficult for an employee who travels frequently to attend a three-day seminar for skill development. It may be simpler for the employee to read a book or participate in an online class to develop the skill.  
         [0101]    Skill map window  1100  includes five main areas which are description  1110 , proficiencies  1120 , education  1130 , mentoring  1150 , and other  1160 . Description  1110  describes the skill to be developed, such as “support data mining activities.” Proficiencies  1120  includes a list of what an employee should be proficient, such as “load and manage data from flat files or relational databases.” Proficiencies  1120  may be used for skill assessment and to track skill acquisition progress (see FIG. 12 for further details regarding skill assessment).  
         [0102]    Ways to obtain proficiency of a particular skill are included in education  1130 , mentoring  1150 , and other  1160 . An employee may choose to take a class to develop the skill. The employee selects box  1135  if he chooses to register for “data mining overview.” The employee selects box  1140  if he chooses to register for “data mining workshop.” The employee selects box  1145  if he chooses to register for “advanced data mining training.” A registration window is displayed corresponding to the employee&#39;s selection. In another embodiment, a web-based hypertext format may be used for skill map windows and registration windows.  
         [0103]    The education section may be configured to only show courses in a geographic area. For example, if an employee works in a metropolitan area, the employee may configure the skill map to only show available courses in the same metropolitan area. If an employee has already taken a class that is displayed, the class may be “grayed out” indicating that the employee has already taken the class.  
         [0104]    Mentoring  1150  includes information about a mentoring program the employee has the option of participating. The mentoring program may include a list of objectives, such as “build a data mining base, perform data preparation, select and carry out appropriate analytical techniques and interpret output.” The employee selects box  1155  to participate in the corresponding mentoring program. A mentor program window may be displayed for the employee to register when the employee selects box  1155 .  
         [0105]    Other  1160  includes other methods for an employee to acquire a skill. The employee may choose on-line tutorials (box  1170 ), books (box  1180 ), or articles (box  1190 ) to assist in skill development. Windows may be displayed providing more information corresponding to the employee&#39;s selection.  
         [0106]    When the employee is finished customizing his skill development, the employee selects button  1195  to save his changes and close the skill map window.  
         [0107]    [0107]FIG. 12 is a diagram showing a manager and employees assessing skill development. Skill assessments may be performed regularly, such as quarterly, or skill assessments may be performed after an employee has completed a project in which the skill assessment is focused on the skills corresponding to the job role the employee was assigned.  
         [0108]    For example, an employee may have a C++ programmer job role for a project. When the project completes, the employee is assessed on skills required for a C++ job role. The employee may not be assessed on other skills, such as Java programming. The employee may perform a self-assessment or his manager may be involved during the assessment.  
         [0109]    Employee  1220  has registered and taken several classes in response to receiving skill map  1200  (see FIG. 11 for further details regarding skill maps). Skill map  1220  includes new skills required for employee  1220 &#39;s job role. Employee  1220  converses with manager  1210  to determine the employees&#39; proficiency level regarding skill  1230  after taking classes. Employee  1220  and manager  1210  determine that employee  1220  has mastered skill  1230  and selects box  1240  corresponding to their decision.  
         [0110]    In one embodiment, employee titles may be determined based on their skill assessment. For example, employees that have an “acquired” or “applied” skill level may be considered junior programmers. Whereas employees that have a “mastered” skill level may be considered senior programmers.  
         [0111]    Employee  1250  is ending a job assignment in which she had a job role that included skill  1260 . Employee  1250  performs a self-assessment of skill  1260  and determines that her proficiency at skill  1260  is “acquired” and selects box  1270 . Employee  1250  may decide that she wants more training to achieve an “applied” skill level and may research online training programs or articles to make her more proficient at skill  1260 .  
         [0112]    [0112]FIG. 13 illustrates information handling system  1301  which is a simplified example of a computer system capable ran, of performing the server and client operations described herein. Computer system  1301  includes processor  1300  which is coupled to host bus  1305 . A level two (L2) cache memory  1310  is also coupled to the host bus  1305 . Host-to-PCI bridge  1315  is coupled to main memory  1320 , includes cache memory and main memory control functions, and provides bus control to handle transfers among PCI bus  1325 , processor  1300 , L2 cache  1310 , main memory  1320 , and host bus  1305 . PCI bus  1325  provides an interface for a variety of devices including, for example, LAN card  1330 . PCI-to-ISA bridge  1335  provides bus control to handle transfers between PCI bus  1325  and ISA bus  1340 , universal serial bus (USB) functionality  1345 , IDE device functionality  1350 , power management functionality  1355 , and can include other functional elements not shown, such as a real-time clock (RTC), DMA control, interrupt support, and system management bus support. Peripheral devices and input/output (I/O) devices can be attached to various interfaces  1360  (e.g., parallel interface  1362 , serial interface  1364 , infrared (IR) interface  1366 , keyboard interface  1368 , mouse interface  1370 , and fixed disk (HDD)  1372 ) coupled to ISA bus  1340 . Alternatively, many I/O devices can be accommodated by a super I/O controller (not shown) attached to ISA bus  1340 .  
         [0113]    BIOS  1380  is coupled to ISA bus  1340 , and incorporates the necessary processor executable code for a variety of low-level system functions and system boot functions. BIOS  1380  can be stored in any computer readable medium, including magnetic storage media, optical storage media, flash memory, random access memory, read only memory, and communications media conveying signals encoding the instructions (e.g., signals from a network). In order to attach computer system  1301  to another computer system to copy files over a network, LAN card  1330  is coupled to PCI bus  1325  and to PCI-to-ISA bridge  1335 . Similarly, to connect computer system  1301  to an ISP to connect to the Internet using a telephone line connection, modem  1375  is connected to serial port  1364  and PCI-to-ISA Bridge  1335 .  
         [0114]    While the computer system described in FIG. 13 is capable of executing the invention described herein, this computer system is simply one example of a computer system. Those skilled in the art will appreciate that many other computer system designs are capable of performing the invention described herein.  
         [0115]    One of the preferred implementations of the invention is an application, namely, a set of instructions (program code) in a code module which may, for example, be resident in the random access memory of the computer. Until required by the computer, the set of instructions may be stored in another computer memory, for example, on a hard disk drive, or in removable storage such as an optical disk (for eventual use in a CD ROM) or floppy disk (for eventual use in a floppy disk drive), or downloaded via the Internet or other computer network. Thus, the present invention may be implemented as a computer program product for use in a computer. In addition, although the various methods described are conveniently implemented in a general purpose computer selectively activated or reconfigured by software, one of ordinary skill in the art would also recognize that such methods may be carried out in hardware, in firmware, or in more specialized apparatus constructed to perform the required method steps.  
         [0116]    While particular embodiments of the present invention have been shown and described, it will be obvious to those skilled in the art that, based upon the teachings herein, changes and modifications may be made without departing from this invention and its broader aspects and, therefore, the appended claims are to encompass within their scope all such changes and modifications as are within the true spirit and scope of this invention. Furthermore, it is to be understood that the invention is solely defined by the appended claims. It will be understood by those with skill in the art that if a specific number of an introduced claim element is intended, such intent will be explicitly recited in the claim, and in the absence of such recitation no such limitation is present. For a non-limiting example, as an aid to understanding, the following appended claims contain usage of the introductory phrases “at least one” and “one or more” to introduce claim elements. However, the use of such phrases should not be construed to imply that the introduction of a claim element by the indefinite articles “a” or “an” limits any particular claim containing such introduced claim element to inventions containing only one such element, even when the same claim includes the introductory phrases “one or more” or “at least one” and indefinite articles such as “a” or “an”; the same holds true for the use in the claims of definite articles.