The Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA) provides the most widely accepted description of IT and IT-related skills in the world today. Although created and maintained in the UK it has been accessed by approximately 15,000 organisations from more than 100 countries. It is used in a range of industries and covers the private, public and not-for-profit sectors. It has been translated into Japanese, Chinese and Spanish.

2. How do I get hold of the SFIA Framework?

The framework is owned by the SFIA Foundation. SFIA is an open-source skills framework. It is open to use by anyone and is free of charge if it is used as a skills management tool within an organisation. It can be downloaded from the SFIA website.

3. What does the SFIA framework look like?

The framework is a large matrix with 2 dimensions. The first dimension is levels of responsibility and the second dimension is skills.

4. What is a SFIA Level of Responsibility?

SFIA describes 7 levels of responsibility. They each describe 4 key dimensions of responsibility: autonomy, influence, complexity and business skills. The levels are numbered and labelled for ease of reference

• Level 1 - Follow
• Level 2 - Assist
• Level 3 - Apply
• Level 4 - Enable
• Level 5 - Ensure, advise
• Level 6 - initiate, influence
• Level 7 - Set strategy, envision

5. What are SFIA skills?

SFIA describes 86 skills. Each skill has an overall definition and then a more detailed descriptor for which ever of the 7 levels that skill is recognised. There are a total of 295 descriptors. 3 examples of the skills described in the framework are Project Management, Enterprise Architecture & Quality Assurance.

6. What is the scope covered by SFIA skills?

The skills cover mainstream IT, user IT and also the interface of IT and business. The 86 skills are grouped into 6 categories: Strategy & Architecture, Business Change, Solution Development & Implementation, Service Management, Procurement and Management Support and Client Interface. They provide definitions for all skills needed by people and organisations involved in delivering and exploiting IT systems.

7. Why do organisations use SFIA?

Organisations use SFIA to improve their people management processes and to help solve critical business problems impacting their people. SFIA can support people management processes such as organisation and role design, training and development, career development, workforce planning, recruitment and performance management. Typical business problems helped by using SFIA are IT out-sourcing, mergers and acquisitions, transformations of IT organisations and talent management in IT organisations.

8. Is SFIA up to date?

SFIA’s aim is to reflect current IT practice not to dictate it. To this end it is produced collaboratively by the industry for the industry. In this way it stays relevant, practical and useful. The framework is constantly revised and updated. Version 4 was published in December 2008.

9. What support is there for SFIA Users?

There is a worldwide SFIA User Forum which is a growing community of SFIA users exchanging experiences and knowledge in order to help each other implement and manage the Skills Framework. It also has a broader interest in developing the capability of Business Change and IT professionals whose roles and careers are covered by the SFIA framework. Users can join at the SFIA User Forum.

10. When spoken; SFIA is usually pronounced like the girl’s name ‘Sophia’.

Do you want to know more about implementing SFIA? Are you looking for SFIA implementation support either in the UK or internationally? Follow this link to learn more about successful SFIA implementations.