This week in Atlanta, I will be meeting with 15 dedicated, digital analytics types in an attempt to answer some of life's imponderables:
Who are we?
What do we do for a living?
How many knowledge and skills levels are there?
What knowledge and skills are needed at each level?
What might a job description look like at each level?
How do you know which level you are?
What do you need to know to get to the next level?
What is the job title of the person you really need to add to your team?
Under the auspices of the Digital Analytics Association (DAA), we are attempting to draw a map of our world.
At the beginning of the year. the DAA hired an experienced Education Manager, Jacki Conn to marshal this process, as well as working with our already wildly successful online courses and certification programs. With thirteen years of progressive experience in the development of association continuing education programs, we are in seriously knowledgeable hands. After six months of working with her, I am a huge fan.
Jacki recruited a Steering Committee to select a psychometric contractor who could help in:
...the development of a comprehensive competency framework/model containing task, knowledge, and skill statements across all levels of the digital analytics profession. This competency framework should reflect the various levels of responsibility, complexity and difficulty that characterize jobs across the entire digital analytics profession from entry-level professionals to industry experts. The framework should identify core competencies, those that are important to everyone in the field, and specific areas of expertise, which are the specialized knowledge and skills required of specific roles.
An Ambitious Undertaking
That's why this Job Task Analysis workshop is a three‐day, in‐person meeting where we begin by pondering the aforementioned imponderables.
When we reemerge at the end of the week, we should have a comprehensive list of the primary domains, tasks, and related knowledge and skills required at three career levels.
Fifteen of us in a room in Atlanta might be wicked smart, but we're only a sample of the target population. So, our contractor will conduct a psychometric and editorial review of the competencies and feed them back to us, logically laid out and ready for validation through a series of global surveys of practicing professionals from the full range of employment settings, geographical regions, education and experience levels.
Once the results have been collected, compiled, and analyzed the survey data, the final designation of tasks, knowledge, and skills to specific career levels is conducted.
At the end of this stage of the project, the full Competency Framework will be ready for publication.
This is following on the success of the award winning University of British Columbia / DAA Award of Achievement in Digital Analytics which is offered 100% online using the DAA’s course material on UBC’s educational platform. The curriculum of four, month-long, tutored courses has been instrumental in helping over a thousand individuals acquire a new job skill in a burgeoning industry.
The DAA’s Web Analyst Certification Program offers a proctored exam for individuals to obtain professional recognition after demonstrating their knowledge of and competency within the web analytics industry. Nearly 200 professionals proudly wear the CWA designation on their CVs, LinkedIn profiles and lapels.
Over The Horizon
Once this document is in hand, any number of 'products' are possible.
Create job descriptions for use by Human Resources
Self-assessment tool to identify one's current capabilities
Help individuals negotiate for titles, responsibilities and compensation
Detect missing training needed to move from on skill level to the next
Put some teeth into the DAA's desire to help members with Professional Development
The digital analytics profession was created some fifteen years ago and has changed dramatically ever since. This attempt to map out what we do for a living is a first and is sure to have a huge effect on defining the professional development roadmap for our industry.
When you see the request to participate in this survey and review the work-in-progress, please click through. The job you are defining is very likely your own.