What is the SMART Tool?
The SMART tool was designed to rapidly perform an organizational skills inventory and assessment based on predefined skill matrixes that map to organizational roles and related public type education, accelerated curriculum and/or custom solutions. New Horizons of Minnesota utilizes the tool for assessing an organization’s education requirements in moving to new technology platforms, buidling a higher level of utilization of existing technologies, and/or other skill level initiatives like building an inventory of your people's skills and developing career planning initiatives.

What are the technologies used?
The SMART tool is a .NET browser-based system for end-user entry and administration support. The backend supporting data structure is Microsoft SQL based.

How does the SMART tool collect information from an assessment?
The end-user through the browser front-end will rate themselves from the predefined group/position they have been associated to which includes related skills for that position. The rating system consists of simple descriptive language that will help the end-user relate appropriately to the correct skill rating for their achievements. And even though this is more of a subjective based assessment, the rating description will help the end-user rate their skill level more accurately. The end-user also has the ability to run reports that will list the various positions they have been mapped to, the skills within, and their associated ratings. The reports also provide a gap analysis indicating where they have met, exceeded, or fallen short to meeting the skill requirements for their role. The final report provides a summary of recommended modules that would help in building their skills from the education courses that were mapped to the assessed technologies.

What are Skills Dictionaries and how are they imported into the SMART tool?
The skill dictionaries are either soft skill or technology-focused listings of varying skills that map back to standard roles within an organization and to education solutions at a module level. Then as individuals rate themselves on each skill mapped within their roles, their skill level rating is compared to the skill level requirements of their specific role in order to recommend the right series of training for them in supporting this technology or soft skill set. Some of the current dictionaries include Visual Studio .NET, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows Server and Active Directory Services, Exchange, Oracle, Novell,  ITIL, SoftSkills, Office Productivity Skills, Sharepoint, project management, Office, Cisco, and many others. Only the dictionaries required for the support of a customer are initially populated into the system. If others are required, SMART can support these to, even client custom dictionaries that are loaded into our template.

What are the organizational and individual reports available with the SMART tool and what is their value?
The client administrator has the ability to run reports that show at an organizational level, where their skill related gaps are and who in the organization they need to concentrate on in order to meet their technology requirements. Additionally, the client administrator has access to an education recommendations report by course that lists recommended students by module from the organization that would benefit most from its content. This report can then be used to set up custom training for the organization in providing economies of scale and the right education for the right needs. Additional deliverables include:

• End-user skills assessment report
• Organizational skills assessment report
• End-user gaps analysis based on an organization’s future technology plans
• Organizational gaps analysis based on an organization’s future technology plans
• End-user education plans
• Organizational education plans that show groups of students with similar training needs for custom solutions based on proven needs

Where does the data that is collected go?
The SQL backend and browser front-end system are hosted centrally with branding capabilities relative to client requirements.

What happens when a large group of individuals needs to be assessed in one organization? Is there an easier way to input the employee information?
Yes, we have routines developed to input large listings into the system for employee names and information. Formats and procedures are outlined in our setup delivery guide to help facilitate this. SMART also supports a self registration process for end-user self-registration into the system.

Can others see my data?
No! Security within the database and how it is structured will keep the information separated by company, thus preventing this situation from occurring.

Where do I learn more about this tool and value?
To learn more Contact New Horizons of Minnesota or call (952) 896-6800