The Council of Engineering and Scientific Specialty Boards is an accreditor of accreditation boards, and serves as an aggregator of best practices for developing certification criteria for assessing the competencies of individuals within engineering and scientific. They have identified 4 criteria for such certifications (and implicitly, for competency measures in general):

1. They must be useful to constituents
2. They must differentiate what makes the competency distinct and important
3. They must be relevant to the work which must be performed and the outcomes which must be achieved
4. They must connect with what we experience as individuals

To be affordable and effective, any competency endeavor must therefore be supported with educational offerings that reliably deliver on multiple fronts, providing: Read more »

A public utility is a classic application of synergy concepts which we experience in our daily lives, and which can influence the mental models of many stakeholders on synergy initiatives. Utilities typically provide universal service by aggregating the needs of many users, and servicing those needs through the products and services which the utility offers. These products and services themselves are typically provided from many different sources, and often trade off cost and demand in determining which sources to use over time. Read more »

In the Harvard Business Review, Sep / Oct98, Vol. 76, Issue 5, p131-143, Michael Goold and Andrew Campbell describe 5 underlying characteristics which successful synergy efforts have been succesfully built upon. They include: Read more »