Hi everyone!

My nephew recently asked me “what I do for work”.

He’s nine and it’s entirely likely he has only just realised that I do things during the day (kids are such a trip!). I gave him the usual line of “I work with people to make changes to big systems – usually with some kind of tech – and I have a cool title.” He was deeply unimpressed with both the description and the Outcomes Engineer title – again, kids are such a trip!

Then just last week, someone challenged the idea that I was doing anything other than “business analyst” work and that my title change was (essentially) gratuitous.

Now, it’s pretty unlikely I’ll ever really impress my nephew with my work shenanigans, – unless I go work for a gaming company perhaps – but luckily, my nephew has got little to do with my employment status. But managers do.

As my work has gotten squishier and squishier over the years, I’ve found it increasingly hard to explain what I do and what value I bring – even to the people who are hiring me. And even harder to do so succinctly. A problem I injected with steroids when I changed my title.

The net result of all of this is that I first got all riled up. Then I went on a bender.

I got serious about skills

So the best skills framework I’m aware of for our kind of work is SFIA (Skills Framework for the Information Age). It’s comprehensive, well structured, and frankly, a tad confronting when you realise how many skills you don’t have – but please don’t let that stop you from getting stuck in.

The framework has:

1. Skills – the core part of the framework. 147 professional capabilities organised into six categories such as strategy & architecture, change & transformation, and relationships & engagement. Individual skills are things like “business situation analysis” (one of my favs!), “requirements definition and management“, or “customer experience”.

2. Levels – seven different mastery levels of the skill from “following” (level one), “applying” (level three), “ensure/advise” (level five), to “setting strategy, inspire, mobilise” (level seven). This is the humbling bit … you might think you’re an expert but oh em gee don’t expect to see high numbers here!

3. Attributes – the behavioural characteristics that underpin how you apply those skills. Attributes are things like “communication”, “influence” and “improvement mindset”. Because I am a glue-type person (presumably like you are), I found this component much more reassuring as I could see how these were the foundation of my toolkit – and of my value in the workplace. This is actually where I’ve focused my personal improvement efforts.

And so I started mapping skills, levels, and attributes. Both for me personally (it is fun to know where you’re at – I highly recommend you doing it for yourself) and for Outcomes Engineering. Because, if I want this thing to be more than just me then I have to define it better than the very nice sounding but ultimately the vague and washy words I’ve used to date.

So far I’ve identified about ten core skills that I think form the backbone of outcomes engineering, four additional skills that – depending on the context – could be required, and a further five skills that there are elements of.

The process has also helped me identify the elements that are definitely outside of the traditional BA role that I am most certainly doing, so that was reassuring that I haven’t gone insane – I really am doing a different role.

And I can point to the things.

I’ll do a proper update on where I’ve ended up with my thinking in another article or brief – if you want to nerd out on SFIA skills and outcomes engineering please hit me up!! – because none of this is actually the point I wanted to make …

There is no better CEO for your career than you

I don’t know what happened to professional development. I seem to recall that managers did actually map and assess your skills for you at one point in time. And then they actively developed you. If you were employed then you’d have some element of professional development going on – professional development was simply baked into work.

Now it seems much less of a thing. I’m often shocked by how little development employees are given and equally shocked at how blind people are to their own skills and levels of expertise.

I guess that’s what happens when you’re left to your own devices.

But, sitting around and waiting for someone to professionally develop you is an utterly terrible strategy.

You should do the opposite. You should become your own HR department.

And you can start by mapping your own skills using SFIA (or another similar framework). Not in a “oh yeah I could do that” gratuitous and self-aggrandising way. But in a ruthless way where you’re really honest about your actual capabilities. Acknowledge where you’re only at a level two or three. Celebrate where you’re nailing it. Get clear on where you should put in the work. Spot the gaps that are going to hurt your next career move.

The bonus is that you’ll also be able to articulate what you do and the skills you bring to the table when you’re done. Boom.

It still probably won’t impress the nephew. But might land you that next job?

As always, I would love to hear your thoughts on this (or anything else), so do reply to this email, DM me on LinkedIn, or send me a letter via pigeon. 

I cannot tell you how much I like hearing from y'all!

And until next time, stay excellent! 💖
Hannah