Long time, no see. Very interesting question and one which deserves more than a short answer but here goes – There are a number of places you can go to gather some current Best Practices and I can point you to some of them if you would like. However, if it’s Next Practices you are looking for, then the challenge becomes a little harder. I will be happy to share what we have learned over the last 12-18 months in this quest. We of course have our own research efforts and are in the midst of one right now on this topic.

Thanks,

Dalip

The first is an internal screen to see how the skill sets of individuals compare against each other. Are those individuals that score highest actually the best performers? Often times there may be important skills (Change Management, Consulting & Facilitation, Teamwork) that aren’t being measured yet play a critical role in success.

Once this internal screen is performed we can benchmark externally against two types of standards. Best practices and next practice companies. We have several sources for this information.

Two important nuances to also consider are:
1) What interdependencies need to be in place between skills? We would question whether someone is truly skilled at Strategic Sourcing without, say, high skills in Teamwork, Negotiations & Contracting, and Consulting & Facilitation.
2) Skills are useless unless they are actually being deployed and used. Measuring frequency is as important as measuring skill.

Hope this helps.