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'Skill Gap Analysis for Improve Skill and Quality Deliverables

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Mallikarjun Koripadu Int. Journal of Engineering Research and Applications www.ijera.com
ISSN : 2248-9622, Vol. 4, Issue 10( Part - 3), October 2014, pp.09-11

RESEARCH ARTICLE OPEN ACCESS

Skill Gap Analysis for Improved Skills and Quality Deliverables

Mallikarjun Koripadu*, K. Venkata Subbiah**
*(Research Scholar in Mechanical Engineering, Andhra University, Visakhapatnam)
** (Department of Mechanical Engineering, Andhra University, Visakhapatnam)

ABSTRACT
With a growing pressure in identifying the skilled resources in Clinical Data Management (CDM) world of
clinical research organizations, to provide the quality deliverables most of the CDM organizations are planning
to improve the skills within the organization. In changing CDM landscape the ability to build, manage and
leverage the skills of clinical data managers is very critical and important. Within CDM to proactively identify,
analyze and address skill gaps for all the roles involved. In addition to domain skills, the evolving role of a
clinical data manager demands diverse skill sets such as project management, six sigma, analytical, decision
making, communication etc. This article proposes a methodology of skill gap analysis (SGA) management as
one of the potential solutions to the big skill challenge that CDM is gearing up for bridging the gap of skills. This
would in turn strength the CDM capability, scalability, consistency across geographies along with improved
productivity and quality of deliverables
Keywords – Skill gap analysis, CDM, Lean

I. INTRODUCTION
CRO companies provides the clinical trial utilized across CDM, but not just the particular
depicted in the figure 1 and other research support domain. Hence, it is important to build a skill gap
services for the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and assessment tool which will help the operations to
medical device industries as well as government assess the teams for the required skills and have the
institutions and universities. Few CROs manage right training plan to build the pool of great skill sets
almost all aspects of a clinical trial from site selection in the organizations.
and patient enrollment through final regulatory
approval from the Food and Drug Administration and II. SKILL GAP ANALYSIS (ILUO) TOOL
European Medicines Agency. Although a trial sponsor For the CRO and other knowledge process
may transfer all trial functions to a third-party CRO, organizations (KPO) it is imperative to have the
the sponsor remains responsible for the integrity of required skill sets and as part of project created a Skill
the trial data. Gap Analysis (SGA) tool for team to capture the skill
levels in various business skills. The skill levels are
defined as I - No Knowledge, L - Trained(Classroom
training only)/Awareness(Only handbook
knowledge), U - Hand's On(Trained, but requires
supervision), O - Proficient Expert(Mentor/Coach
Level). Identify the required skills and categorized
into Business Line, Application/Technology, Process
Knowledge and finally Soft Skills.
The attached screen shot in the figure 2 provides the
categorization of skill sets under each skill category
with the clear color code. This SGA tool is designed
in a simple excel based with the formulas in each cell.
Fig 1: Clinical trial in a nutshell

Operations team to be ready with all the relevant

activities, it is important that the team is equipped
with right skill as all the CROs and CDM world are
the knowledge based service industries. Creating the
pool of knowledge and retaining them with the right
skill sets and also making sure these resources can be

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Mallikarjun Koripadu Int. Journal of Engineering Research and Applications www.ijera.com
ISSN : 2248-9622, Vol. 4, Issue 10( Part - 3), October 2014, pp.09-11

Fig 2: Excel based SGA Tool with heat map

In the SGA each resource is assigned the skill on the

scale of blank to O for each skill set to assess the skill Fig 3: Skill ranges and team skill distribution before
level and also computed the percentage of skill as a Based on the above findings that 32% of the
whole. employees fall under >75%, 8% of the team falls
Skill level and percentage of skill against the expected <40% and hence this is required to build a well
is computed as follows: structured training plan. Below is the attached training
Skill of each resource on the skill sets = Scale of plan template and mentee-mentor concept has been
blank to O (i) designed to improve the skills sets by identifying a
Sum of the skill available for each resource = (No of subject matter experts (SMEs) the respective skills.
Skills with, "I")*1)+ (No of Skills with, "L")*2)+(No These SMEs are assigned to each mentee as a mentor,
of Skills with, "U")*4)+(No of Skills with, "O")*5) so that the time spent by the team members in
(ii) clarifying the doubts are reduced, this is because each
Required skill for each skills set = Scale of blank cell the trainee is supposed to reach out the assigned SME
to O (iii) or mentor only. Due to which the time saved and
Sum of required skills= (No of Skills with, "I")*1)+ quality improved. The plan is designed as below for
(No of Skills with, "L")*2)+(No of Skills with, each individual who fall under <75% of the skill as a
"U")*4)+(No of Skills with, "O")*5) (iv) template and not provided details due to
Percentage of skills for each resource = Resource ii/ confidentiality.
iv  (v)
Once the data is available conducted the analysis on
the how many are in what range of skills. The range is
0% - 40%, 41% - 75% and >75% and the analysis is
depicted as follows with the pie chart where the
complete team is falling in these ranges.

Fig 4: Training plan template

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 Mallikarjun Koripadu Int. Journal of Engineering Research and Applications www.ijera.com
ISSN : 2248-9622, Vol. 4, Issue 10( Part - 3), October 2014, pp.09-11

REFERENCES
[1] Fotis Draganidis, Gregoris Mentzas, (2006)
"Competency based management: a review
of systems and approaches", Information
Management & Computer Security, Vol. 14
Iss: 1, pp.51 – 64
[2] Edited by Richard A. Easterlin, University of
Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, and
approved May 1, 2007 (received for review
April 30, 2007)
[3] Mark Homer, (2001) "Skills and competency
management", Industrial and Commercial
Training, Vol. 33 Iss: 2, pp.59 - 6230, 2007)
Fig 5: Mentee –Mentor plan [4] Mark Homer, (2001) "Skills and competency
management", Industrial and Commercial
Post the implementation of the training plan with the Training, Vol. 33 Iss: 2, pp.59 - 62
mentee mentor concept for the period of 3 months the
skills sets have been changes as below.

Fig 6: Skill ranges and team skill distribution after

From the above analysis it is evident that the skill

sets, there has been a great change and improvement
in skills which led to the productivity improvement
and the deliverables were shared with client with an
improved quality

III. CONCLUSION
A skills gap analysis can really benefit an
organization by providing a critical overview of the
workforce allowing managers to determine if their
employees have the necessary skills to meet
organizational objectives. If employees do not have
these skills, an organization can use the skills gap
analysis to prioritize training resources so that they
are tailored to specific job roles rather as opposed to
generic training days that are not suitable for all the
individuals participating. Hence, from this paper it is
explained and implemented the SGA in the CRO and
seen the results in improved skills and productivity.
This can be applied in any type of organizations

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