The holism in competence — A study on building wholesome competence in people

Abstract

Competence building is a holistic concept. It involves not only known aspects such as knowledge, 'perceived experience, and soft skills but also aspects that are not clearly known or understood such as cross influences between knowledge, skills and soft capabilities. Competence is the 'ability to do' work, whereas most training methods focus on imparting knowledge, which has a poor correlation to people performance in the roles they take up after education.Organizations need an assurance of good 'ability to do' in the people who join them.Systems Engineering being multidisciplinary in nature and application and the focus being 'able to do', the education pedagogies are to align with this. This paper analyzes this problem and looks at options to address the cross influences and enhance the ability to do in people. Based on the various pilots done and the study of the holistic aspects, this paper attempts to provide a pedagogy for this.