The Office of Personnel Management has announced its
intention to link existing government-wide IT training
programs into a consolidated framework largely based on the
Clinger-Cohen core competencies developed in 1997 to help
agencies establish knowledge and skill requirements, and
recommended increased use of the IT exchange program.
OPM conducted a study in 2000 of the federal IT workforce
and identified competencies for the IT management
occupational series and parenthetical specialty titles,
that together with the Clinger-Cohen competency information
represent the critical competencies for the federal IT
workforce and are the evaluative basis for the report in
determining the adequacy of the existing IT programs,
said OPM.
It said such a framework would “raise the bar for federal
IT training and education, and called for improvements to
existing training opportunities.
The Government Accountability Office said in a recent
report that federal agencies often did not follow best
practices in IT training, and survey respondents cited
budget and time constraints as reasons for not devoting
more time to IT training.
The Clinger-Cohen competencies identified by OPM are:
policy and organizational leadership; process and change
management; information resources strategy and planning;
performance assessment: models and methods; project and
program management; capital planning and investment
assessment; acquisition; e-government, electronic
business and e-commerce; IT security and information; and,
desktop technology tools.