The Department of the Navy Systems Engineering Career Competency Model

Abstract

The Naval Postgraduate School is developing a competency model for the profession of systems engineering. There is currently no professional engineering occupational code (08XX) for systems engineers, so there is no verified competency model source to use for human resource functions related to systems engineers. The key objective of the systems engineering competency career model (SECCM) project is to develop a verified systems engineering career competency model that can be used as a foundation for establishing construct validity for SE related human resources actions. To ensure the SE competency model will be able to be used this way, the SECCM project is having OPM use a standard approach to verify the occupational analysis in compliance with the Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures (Uniform Guidelines). A verified SECCM provides a valuable resource as a model that can be used for both key human resource functions as well as for the consistent career development of systems engineers. The SECCM is based on the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) ENG Career Field Competency Model, currently used by the ENG acquisition community. The SECCM has enhanced the current ENG model through the addition of extensive sets of knowledge, skills, and ability (KSA) statements - each defined in terms of Bloom’s taxonomy and mapped to each of the higher level system engineering competencies. Each competency and the associated KSAs are further partitioned into a series of typical career development points (i.e., from entry level to subject matter expert), to allow for planning and tracking of a competency-based development of systems engineers. This paper describes the development of the SECCM, and the current state of the competency model and verification process.