European e-Competence Framework approach to soft skills

The European e-Competence Framework (e-CF) version 3.0 is a set of 40 competences required and applied on information systems jobs that the European Committee for Standardization (CEN) ICT Skills Workshop has identified.

These competences are called "e-Competence" in the document.

The e-CF describes an e-Competence with four "dimensions":
Dimension 1 : the "e-Competence area" ("Plan", "Build", "Run", "Enable" or "Manage") hosting the e-Competence
Dimension 2 : the "title" and the "generic description"
Dimension 3 : the "e-Competence proficiency levels" (five levels)
Dimension 4 : examples of applicable "knowledge" and "skills"

For example, the e-Competence "User Support" belongs to the Dimension 1area Run and the Dimension 2 generic description includes

• "respond to user requests and issues, recording relevant information". 
• "understand how to monitor solution outcome and resultant customer satisfaction".

Dimension 3 :
Within proficiency level 1, the worker is able to

• "interact with users (…)",
• "solve incidents (…)",

Dimension 4 :
He should know

• "relevant information on the applications" used by the users
• "sources of information for potential solutions"
• …

He shoud be able to

• "effectively interrogate users to establish symptoms"
• "clearly communicate with end users" 
• "record and code issues" in the trouble ticket system
• "provide instructions on how to progress issues"
• …

As a matter of fact, e-CF defines a "competence" as "a demonstrated ability to apply knowledge, skills and attitudes for achieving observable results", but "attitudes are embedded".

And that's exactly what the CEN ICT Skills Workshop says in the "Guiding principles" of the framework.


[1] European e-Competence Framework, CEN

To go further, some questions :

• To your opinion, what kind of soft skills should be embedded into the User support e-Competence ?
• To your opinion, what are the reasons why the CEN ICT Skills Workshop has decided not to directly address attitudes into the European e-Competences Framework ?

This post is sourced from the study "Soft skills : une étude sur les référentiels de soft skills" (Ang : Soft skills : a study on soft skills reference lists) by Tru Do-Khac, Do-Khac Decision april 2020.

Tru Do-Khac : consulting by design et solutions de soft skills, on LinkedIn