CLARIFY Role(s) & Expectations

The first step in the Competency Development process is to CLARIFY an understanding of the AM responsibilities that are being performed by the individual and the organizational expectations for those responsibilities.

The common, generic AM roles described in the AM Functional Areas and Roles pages were developed to assist in this task. They can be used as a foundation for customizing a description of an individual’s existing AM responsibilities. The generic AM Roles in the AMCF are described in the form of a competency profile. Each role’s competency profile includes a short role description, the associated AM responsibilities for that role, the approximate seniority level for the role, and the required levels of proficiency in each of the 12 AM competencies to successfully perform that role. These target proficiency levels can be considered the organization’s “expectations” for that role.

The AM Development Tool utilizes the same information as above to help streamline and standardize some of this effort. It can be used to start the Competency Development process and follow through the remaining steps in one place. Begin building AM role(s) and determining target proficiencies in Tabs 1 and 2 of the tool.

Additional Considerations

Roles ≠ Positions:

Remember that a role is not the same thing as a position. A person may perform one or several roles in their job. The AM Roles described might similarly encompass a person’s entire job, or only a portion of that job. It will depend on the responsibilities they perform and how they are bundled into AM Roles in the AMCF.

The AMCF Applies to Any Organizational Structure:

Note that small organizations will often not have a dedicated, full-time AM position filled. Instead, several different people will have a piece of their job devoted to AM, encompassing one or more of the AM Roles or AM Functional Areas. The AMCF is applicable to any organizational structure. For instance, AM Roles in any functional area could be found in a central AM department, or in another service area / department as part of a decentralized AM structure. A central AM department might be part of an organization’s corporate services branch. A decentralized AM structure might situate AM Roles in the public works, development services, or finance departments, for example. All these approaches are equally valid.

The AMCF Applies Only to AM:

Also remember that it is important to read the AMCF only from the perspective of delivering AM in an organization. As an interdisciplinary field, the full scope of AM is so broad that this framework will overlap with many different jobs and departments. But, as written, it only applies to AM responsibilities. It is not intended to fully describe the scope of responsibilities an individual may perform in a Canadian public sector organization. As just discussed, many of the AM responsibilities in an organization will be performed by a person who is not solely dedicated to AM, especially in smaller organizations. This means there will be additional responsibilities and additional expectations to account for. For more details about the roles the AMCF supports see the Who is the AMCF For? page.

Generalist vs. Specialist AM Roles:

Remember that the generalist roles in the General AM functional area are focused on the whole of AM. They are intended to support the development and sustainment of the entire AM management system and AM program. The roles making up the other AM Functional Areas would be specialist roles. These specialist AM Roles would be focused on only a portion of AM, as represented by the functional area they are found in.

Competency Profile vs. Job Description:

Competency Profiles outline the specific competencies and corresponding target proficiency levels required to be successful within a role or defined group. A job description describes work activities (duties), whereas a competency profile describes the knowledge, skills and behaviours required to carry out those duties.