On 23-24 August 2007 Asia Pacific International College hosted a workshop attended by members of Engineers Australia, dedicated to exploring transformative competencies applicable to engineering. Virtually all age groups were represented in the workshop.

The theme of the workshop was "Professional competencies to cope with a world characterised by uncertainty, complexity and change".

The workshop objective was to challenge the conventional wisdom and promote fresh thinking about the changing nature of professionalism. It focused on the contemporary and emergent business and social trends, and reflected on how these are reshaping professional practice. Lectures delivered to the delegates aimed to convey the ´messy´ nature of real life problems/contexts and environments that professionals have to deal with on a routine basis. Participants studied the major issues that confront engineering project managers and other professionals in this century.

The workshop provided an opportunity for the delegates to assess their competencies in a range of areas using the online competency assessment system developed by Asia Pacific International College, comprising 54 units and 156 elements in the following divisions: (i) leadership, socio-cultural and communication; (ii) project and business management; and (iii) organisation and risk management. Not everyone is expected or needs to be competent in all the 54 units, as the range covers the spectrum of competencies expected of a project-based unit.

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Competency assessment is a controversial concept. The term competence or competency is commonly taken to mean task dexterity and workplace skills and assessed in terms of knowledge, skills and attitude. This understanding is still the foundation for assessment and development of competence in the majority of professional certification schemes. It dates back to industrial age where task repetition was common and one could learn the best-in-class approaches and emulate these to deliver new tasks.

The question is how relevant and valid these concepts are in today´s environment of change and uncertainty. Competence is about autonomy, self reference and group self organisation, that is the specific self-image, values, traits, and motive dispositions (i.e. relatively enduring characteristics of people) that are found to consistently distinguish superior from base performance in a given job or role (McClellan, 1973; Spencer and Spencer, 1993). The top competency scale designed by APIC reflects the qualities that underpin outstanding performance (one standard deviation above mean); it is constructed to shift the thinking of managers from normative to transformative state. It recognises that possession of knowledge, skills and attitude by them will not be sufficient; systems thinking and emotional intelligence are the pillars of superior managerial performance. Successful leadership in management requires meta-cognitive abilities, affective and conative competence, as well as skills in negotiation and influence.

Professor Jaafari, who facilitated the above workshop, praised the participants for their intense interest in concepts of professionalism and competence; he intends to write to Engineers Australia formally to recommend that Engineering Executive Competencies be extended and refocused to reflect the shifting realities in professional preparation and practice. A new workshop is planned to debate the merit of creating an Engineering Competency Model that can be adopted by engineering organisations as the base model.

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