📖 Note: This guide explains how those with Manage Users, Manage Functions, Manage Squads, Manage Events, and/or View Insights permissions can overlay work roles onto an Affiliated User Profile.
About Work Roles on the FifthDomain Platform
Work Roles (WRs) comprise of a list of skills and responsibilities representing specific job functions within an organisation. An individual's ability to exhibit a WR's required skills and responsibilities determines how well they match the WR, and how well they can carry out the job function their WR represents.
The FifthDomain platform allows cyber teams to add their operational cyber work roles to their organisation on the platform. WRs in your organisation can then be assigned to specific members of your cyber teams (if they are Affiliated users in your organisation on the platform).
Once a member of your cyber team has been assigned a WR within your organisation, Manager users (with platform permissions granting them the ability to view Affiliated User Profiles) can then overlay the WR over their Cyber Skills Cortex. This allows them to see how well that team member matches with their assigned WR, and identify specifically which of their required cyber skills are fulfilled and unfulfilled based on their current cyber skillset. Once skill gaps are identified, they can then be remediated by assigning relevant FifthDomain Training Activities and/or other events.
📚 In order for work roles to be able to be overlayed onto an Affiliated User's Profile, the FifthDomain team needs to first set up work roles in your organisation on the platform. For more information on this process, please refer to this article.
Where can Work Roles be Overlayed?
To overlay an individual's WR onto their Cyber Skills Cortex and see how well they match their assigned WR, you'll need to go to their Affiliated User Profile. There are five permissions that can access a user's Affiliated User Profile and overlay their WR onto their Cyber Skills Cortex. These permissions are:
Manage Users
Manage Functions (given to Org Designers)
Manage Squads (given to Function Leads and Squad Managers)
Manage Events
View Insights
📚 To understand more about these five permissions, and how they each allow users to navigate to Affiliated User Profiles, please refer to this article.
📌 Pre-requisites for Overlaying Work Roles in an Affiliated User's Profile:
In order to have an Affiliated User Profile, a user needs to be registered to the platform and have accepted an invitation to affiliate with your organisation (i.e. they need to have a Confirmed affiliation status within your organisation).
In order for you to overlay a WR onto an affiliated user's Cyber Skills Cortex, they must be assigned a WR. Note that although Manage Squads (Function Leads and Squad Managers), Manage Functions (Org Designers), Manage Users, Manage Events, and View Insights permissions all grant access to Affiliated User Profiles in an organisation, only Manage Users and Squad Managers can actually assign and edit edit a user's assigned WR.
Assigning and Editing Affiliated User Work Roles
If you're a Squad Manager, or you have Manage Users permission, you'll be able to assign and edit an affiliated user's WR. To do this, simply click the Edit [1] button (in the Assigned Work Role section on their Affiliated User Profile). If the user already has a WR assigned to them, you'll be able to see the Work Role Name [2] next to the Edit button.
Once you have clicked Edit, a popup modal will appear. Simply select a WR of your choosing to assign to the affiliated user in the dropdown.
You can type and search in the dropdown input bar[1], and select the desired WR from the filtered list. After selecting a WR, click Save [2] to save the assigned work role, or press Cancel[3] to cancel.
If you wish to remove a user's WR, simply click None Assigned in the dropdown.
Turning on the Work Role Overlay Toggle
Once you are viewing an Affiliated User Profile with an assigned WR (via any of the five permission-based pathways outlined here), navigate to the Cyber Skills Cortex section of the profile. By default, the affiliated user's WR will not be overlayed onto their Cortex. As such, you'll be able to see all skills the user has demonstrated against the FifthDomain Cynaptic Adaptor, regardless of WR requirements.
To overlay the affiliated user's WR, simply click the Overlay Toggle.
Understanding Work Role Skills Fulfilment
Regardless if the toggle is on or off, in the Work Role Skills Fulfilment section, you'll be able to see the number of required skills [1] in the user's WR, as well as a count of how many skills are currently are fulfilled [2] and unfulfilled [3]. For an expanded view of this, click See Details [4].
💡 Remember:
For a skill to be considered as 'required' for a user, it must be mapped to that user's assigned work role. For example, a 'Cyber Intelligence Analyst' work role may require the Geo-Intelligence (GI) skill. If a user named Jenny has been assigned the 'Cyber Intelligence Analyst' work role, then Geo-Intelligence would be a required skill for Jenny. Conversely, if the 'Cyber Intelligence Analyst' work role does not require the Secure Coding (SC) skill, then Secure Coding is not a required skill for Jenny.
Required skills can be either fulfilled or unfulfilled.
For a required skill to be considered fulfilled, it needs to have been demonstrated by the user at or above the target proficiency set for the skill in the work role.
If a required skill has not been demonstrated at all by the user, or has only been demonstrated below the target proficiency set for the skill in the work role, then it is an unfulfilled skill for that user.
When the FifthDomain team sets up work roles for your organisation, each Customer Skill they add to each work role will be assigned a target proficiency level. When viewing the Cyber Skills Cortex, each Customer Skill in a work role is displayed as per its equivalent FifthDomain Skill(s). The target proficiencies set for a Customer Skill in a work role will therefore reflect as the target proficiency required for the equivalent FifthDomain Skills in the work role. Please refer to this article for more information on how Customer Skills are mapped to their mapped equivalent FifthDomain Skills, as well as how target proficiency levels are assigned to Customer Skills when setting up work roles in organisations.
As an example, if Geo-Intelligence (GI) is required for a work role named 'Cyber Intelligence Analyst', and Level 3 (Competent) is the target proficiency that was set for the Customer Skill(s) in the work role (that GI is mapped as the equivalent to), then, if a user assigned to this work role demonstrates GI at Level 3 or above, GI would be a fulfilled skill for them.
If a user assigned to this work role has not demonstrated GI, or has only done so below Level 3, then GI would be an unfulfilled skill for them.
Reading Work Role Cortex Overlays
Once the WR overlay toggle is turned to be on, the user's Cortex will change to only focus on skills required of their WR. Any skills not required for the user's WR will be greyed out, like below:
The number of skill rows that you can see (i.e. that are not greyed out) on the Cortex will equal the total number of required skills for the user's WR, like below:
Understanding Skills Fulfilment Statuses
Each skill row in the Cortex will have one of two skills fulfilment statuses:
Fulfilled Skill (Current), referring to required skills that the user has already demonstrated at or above the target proficiency set for the skill in the work role (these are marked by a green tick icon);
Unfulfilled Skill (Post-Training), referring to required skills that the user has not already demonstrated at or above the target proficiency set for the skill in the work role (these are marked by a red exclamation icon).
You will be able to see a status icon [1] next to each required skill name abbreviation on the Cortex. Use the Skills Fulfilment Icons Key [2] below the Cortex to see each skill status icon.
📖 Note: Skills for which the user has been assigned a training activity (at any proficiency level) will also be marked with a blue training icon (see GI, NX, WX, TA, and AD in the image above). Training icons will appear until the relevant assigned training challenges have been solved within their training activities. Additionally, as detailed here, remember that only Squad Managers can see and manage training activities. If you aren't a Squad Manager, you won't see training on an Affiliated User Profile even if the user has been assigned training.
Identifying the Target Proficiency for a Required Skill
The target proficiency for a required skill in a work role is marked on each skill row with a thick dark green border (refer to Target Proficiency in the Skill-Proficiency Square Key). Each required skill only has one target proficiency required of them for the work role. As such, for each required skill, there will only be one Skill-Proficiency square with this thick dark green border.
In the example below, you can see that for every required skill, there is one Skill-Proficiency square with a thick dark green border. The square with this thick dark green border is the target proficiency set for the skill in the work role. For instance, in the image below, the target proficiency for OC is Level 3 (Competent). DM has Level 2 (Proficient) set as its target proficiency, SA has Level 3 (Competent) as its target proficiency, and so on.
💡 Remember: if a user demonstrates a required skill at or above the target proficiency, the skill will become fulfilled for them (in the context of their current work role). If not, the skill will be unfulfilled for them.
📖 Note: All Skill-Proficiency squares underneath the target proficiency set for a skill will have a thin green border. For instance, if Level 4 is the target proficiency for a skill (e.g. BX), then the Level 4 Skill-Proficiency BX square will have a thick green border, and BX Levels 1-3 will in this case have a thin green border.
Skill-Proficiency squares above the target proficiency will have a thin grey border, denoting that they are not required for the user to demonstrate for their work role (referring to the same example, Level 5 BX is above the target proficiency of Level 4, and hence will have a thin grey border).
Aside from the target proficiency border (thick green border), the other Skill-Proficiency square borders are for visual effect only and do not have any bearing on work role fulfilment.
Understanding Fulfilled Skills
Fulfilled skills are skills where the user has demonstrated ability at or above the target proficiency. In the example below, the user has fulfilled 7/14 required skills. In the image below, Opensource Collection (OC) [1] has been fulfilled by the assigned user. From the dark green border, you can see that Level 3 is the target proficiency for OC in their work role. As another example, refer to Anomaly Detection (AN) [2], which is also required at Level 3. The user has demonstrated AN at Level 4 (above the target), so AN is also fulfilled. All fulfilled skills (7 in the case below) will have a green tick icon next to their skill name abbreviations.
Understanding Unfulfilled Skills
Unfulfilled skills are skills where the user has not demonstrated ability at or above the target proficiency. In the example below, 7/14 required skills are unfulfilled. In the image below, Darkweb Monitoring (DM) [1] is unfulfilled by the assigned user. From the dark green border, you can see that DM is required at Level 4, however, this has not yet been achieved. As another example, refer to Web Exploitation (WX) [2], which is also required at Level 4. The user has demonstrated WX at Level 3, which is below the target, so WX remains unfulfilled (although the blue training icon shows that training has been assigned to help address this skill gap). All unfulfilled skills (7 in the case below) will have a red exclamation icon next to their skill name abbreviations.
What do I do with this information?
The ability to overlay WRs onto an affiliated user's profile is key to being able to evaluate an individual's cyber skills against specific work roles and identify where their skills match requirements, where they don't meet requirements (i.e. identify skill deficits), and where they might have extra skills (i.e. identify surplus skills). Being able to identify this helps cyber team managers make targeted steps toward tailored and personalised skills development and training. This information is also crucial in being able to understand where to best allocate individuals in an organisation based on the structural requirements of each cyber team.
💡 Remember: Don't forget that having the WR overlay toggled on allows you to see a user's cyber skills against the requirements of their WR. Turning the toggle off allows you to see all skills they have demonstrated (not just required skills in their WR). Note that users with a lot of surplus skills (excess skills not required of their WR) may be suitable candidates for lateral role transition, or, their current WR may not be the most suitable for them. If this is the case, you may wish to discuss WR transition or re-assignment with the individual and/or their relevant managers.
❗️Important: Please note that although overlaying WRs onto Cyber Skills Cortexes is a helpful way to discern whether members within cyber teams have Skill-Proficiency gaps in certain required skills, insights provided by the Cyber Skills Cortex are dependent on users completing enough events on the FifthDomain platform, and solving enough challenges to reflect their real-life cyber skills.
Additionally, please also consider the frequency, recency, and/or 'depth' of Skill-Proficiency demonstrations in assessing a user's real-life skills. Users who have demonstrated required skills at their target proficiencies may, in some cases, still have a skills gap if they have only demonstrated the relevant Skill-Proficiency infrequently, and/or not very recently.