Coupling project and system criteria for design coordination: A focus on competences management

Over the past number of years, competence management has become a key issue for companies. Similarly, to the importance of knowledge management, competence management considers an individual’s performance, based on his or her knowledge. Thus, knowledge management becomes an important aspect for companies to manage resources, through the ability of characterizing key competences and evaluating how they are improved through past experiences and roles, thus selecting project team members according to the respective existing skills. This paper focuses on the coordination of design activities in order to propose a tool dedicated to operation-level project managers, to help prepare their technical teams based on the required skills. The goal is to enhance the effectiveness of the teams, as well as their performance in the short-term, as well as the longterm, while coordinating with the human resources department. This work is based on the results of the Aides et assisTances pour la conception, la conduite et leur coupLage par les connAissanceS – Help and support for design, coordination and their coupling by knowledge (ATLAS, 2008 - 2011). This project studies the coupling between systems design and management. We propose an initial tool to manage skills in a design project.