A lot is being talked about “upskilling” in the IT Services industry, but it is interesting to acknowledge that this as a process is not new and has been there for all industries for decades.

So what has changed, did we not see this when Mainframes moved to RISC machines or Y2K was a reality or Internet and Web Computing becoming a reality or now that mobility and cloud are here to stay. Every decade has seen few of these changes to influence what we more popularly knew as reskilling from old to the new.

What we see as change is,

–         It has to now happen anytime , anywhere

–         Byte size learning in line with attention span of the human being

–         Multi-skilling is a must as we need small teams and high execution speeds

–         Quality of skill implemented is tested on outcome so shop floor ready from day 1

–         Availability and speed of training is now aligned to the express speed required for delivery

Gone are the days where we start to do choice skilling and go through curriculum either self-funded or by the company to add to our knowledge lockers and badges. Skilling has a new paradigm of ROI (return on investment) for each individual/company of how effectively the same can be used instantaneously. More importantly each individual will have to own the upskilling process both commercially and knowledge wise. The triggers for the same will be online basis project requirements or the very reason for success in being relevant to the current age requirements.

Classroom sessions and university like campuses within companies are going to give way to “Digital Learning” and “Real work assessment” so that the products coming out of this new engine is production ready and providing return on investment done from the moment they come out of the process. The process itself is now not going for months and qtr.’s but finishes in hrs. The practical work is embedded inside the process on live environments for real life “show and tell” of knowledge, so activating a fair bit of rejection as real life cannot afford mediocrity. 

The parameters of evaluation is now global, which is now the new report card of any associate. This will drive the fear out of any associate as they naturally become world class and those who cannot will have to choose alternate areas of skills till they can find the right fit to become world citizens in that skill place. Therefore driving the career planning and knowledge learning paths naturally and self-driven. I can clearly see that the coaches and mentors who will enable the associates, providing them right direction will become less impression driven and more data driven, basis analytics and AI which is cultivating the person’s 360 Degree profile and then matching it to the right direction of knowledge upgrade.

Benefit out of this process is that the “upskilled” associate is not only world grade, but also wanting to be part of the “skill place” with “passion” and “commitment”. Nobody will then be force fitted into a particular path, but at the same time one has to realize that the path itself will be that of “multi-skilling” as the “do-it-yourself” world will ensure that we have the right mix of skills to provide business outcome to the end customer.

This is where we now come across “Skill Units (SKU’s)” in the IT Services industry, which are for lack of any other analogy a “Scrum Team” small or optimum which has the right mix of skills to provide outcome basis problems statements which are so well defined in the new “Micro Services” world that we are now very familiar to.

These “SKU’s” will then have their own path of maturity and proficiency and the associates themselves are like “docking units” who get attached to these “SKU’s” basis the problem statement and outcome definition in real time. The pre-requisite for being able to dock is already available in the associate profile basis the upskilling process we defined earlier. So they dock if they are production ready at the level the problem statement needs.

By definition scrum teams are small in size (5+/-2_) , therefore the larger SKU’sin the bottom of the maturity and proficiency cycle to make it challenging for upgrading where the teams will become even smaller but very high on output , driving further multiskilling and therefore we will see an era of “All-rounder Guru’s” moving away from just specialist Guru’s. This is also alert bell for “Generalists” as they will quickly have to move to this knowledge path or allow them to be replaced by BOT’s and #NewAge processes including Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning.

The above statements look like very challenging, but the current age has already laid the foundation of the #NewAge by bringing in global standard MOOC providers and practical assessment platforms of similar providers. These “digital learning” companies bring in the best of the world at “cloud speed” and “global quality”. I can clearly see that the cloud of these companies are only going to grow and make the new “Clout” of learning as we march into #NewAge.

Adopting the above process will help us ensure that we look at the graphics below in a few years’ time to be the darkest green for India as IT Services has always taken up new challenges through the several decades and this will be something which I am sure will come out of flying colors.