What is competence?

Simple enough right? But really what does it mean? I particularly like the following definition:

A cluster of related abilities, commitments, knowledge, and skills that enable a person (or an organization) to act effectively in a job or situation. Competence indicates sufficiency of knowledge and skills that enable someone to act in a wide variety of situations. Because each level of responsibility has its own requirements, competence can occur in any period of a person’s life or at any stage of his or her career.

Read more: http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/competence.html#ixzz41osKIP2w

So competence includes abilities, commitments, knowledge and skill? Does it mean competence is only concerned with your technical skills and abilities or does it actually cover more than that? Take for example the sport of rugby union — often the coach does not pick players solely on playing ability. In many cases a player may possess certain qualities that make his selection the right selection for the team. The player might not be the best in his position but he may be a great leader who can bring people together when things get tough and you aren’t winning. Rugby union is a team sport and even if you have the best individuals assembled based solely on ability in that team, you might not win. So does superior technical skills in any job imply competence? I’m not so sure really because if you do not have the desire to succeed those technical skills mean nothing. Think of it as having the fastest Ferrari, except if you have no petrol, where the Ferrari represents the skills and the petrol represents your intent and willpower. Without the petrol the Ferrari stands still and means nothing.

Competency is “a cluster of related abilities” which means that even if you are the world’s best programmer and you write the most technically sound code, it may mean nothing if you do not have additional skills such as being able to convey the meaning of your code to others or be able to coach others then what is the point of writing “perfect code”. If you live in a world where your own code is the only thing you are interested in because you think all others write inferior code then you might end up with the situation where your code dies with you. The other thing is that while you may think your code is the best there is, it may not be at all and there are examples where “inferior” or “bad” code has produced systems that are more successful than those who supposedly have “great” code. Ultimately writing code means fulfilling a promise to a client, and helping that client succeed with their business. I’m not advocating writing “bad code” but what I am saying is that I have worked with developers that think their code is amazing, but the underlying system had little or no success. Developers also tend to use their perception of good and bad code as a way to judge rather than coach. If someone gets something wrong once people tend to assume that the person is incapable of doing it at all without giving that person a second chance. Sometimes people need a little motivation and encouragement to succeed, rather than being told or it being implied that they are incompetent. Also if you as a developer imply incompetence with others then you imply you are without fault and your own work will survive any scrutiny where others won’t and from experience I have seen developers who claim superior code and when you investigate their code you find many dark and unholy places. Developers need humility, not vanity.

So what is competence then? Personally it starts with intent, an intent to succeed no matter how long it takes. Success in life is not a linear graph, its a graph that goes in all directions (good and bad) but which eventually gets you to your intended destination. Technical skills are very important — but on their own they mean very little.