Soft Skills

While the below are not skills that can be gained through this certification, those are desired skills that every SA should have, as they will help will having Refinement Sessions, managing expectations and defending the solution:

• Conflict Handling: Conflict handling skills are abilities used to manage, resolve, and mitigate conflicts in a constructive manner. These skills involve effective communication, empathy, active listening, negotiation, and problem-solving. They enable individuals to address disagreements and tensions in a way that reduces hostility, finds common ground, and fosters positive relationships

• Leadership: Leadership skills are abilities that enable the SA to guide, inspire, and influence others towards achieving common goals. These skills encompass effective communication, strategic thinking, decision-making, empathy, and the ability to motivate and empower team members. Leadership also involves adaptability, integrity, and the capacity to build and maintain relationships

• Ownership and Accountability: The SA will own the solution, and will be responsible (accountable) for the delivery from a technical perspective, and therefore should be able to defend it in front of any person who requests it (Steer Co member, CTOs, other team members…)

• De-escalation: It is not uncommon that conversations or situations of escalation will arise, and the SA should be able to reduce the intensity of a conflict or potentially violent situation. It involves using communication techniques, empathy, active listening, and calm body language to defuse tension and prevent escalation. Some examples being:

  • A customer escalates and requests to talk to PFX CTO to discuss some performance topics: the answer is not to directly escalate, but rather to provide a calm message to the customer and understand where the worry comes from; the SA should be able to handle performance questions (triage, guidance, best practices) without having to reach out always to higher levels of management

  • A customer has unreasonable expectations about what PFX does (or doesn’t): the answer here is not to fight with the customer, but rather to show some empathy and understanding, while explaining the purpose of PFX and showing alternatives that would fulfill customer’s expectations

• Mentoring: the SA, as the Mentor, provides guidance, advice, and support to the CEs and future SAs. The purpose of this mentoring is to help the CEs and future SAs develop skills, gain knowledge, and achieve personal and professional growth - all of those related to PFX

• Delegation: While the SA owns the technical solution and design, s/he is not responsible for everything in the project:

  • The SA is not a CE, and therefore should not do CE work (unless e.g. specific POCs)

  • The SA is not a QA, and therefore should not have to replicate bugs or test scenarios (e.g. when some complex triage is needed)

  • The SA is no a PM, and therefore should not have to organize meetings (such as Steer Co’s or Refinement Sessions) and should not have to deal with escalations - the SA will provide anything the PM needs, but the organizational hassles should be handled by the PM

• Asking for help: The SA should not hesitate to reach out for help whenever needed; PFX (as a product) is evolving with each new release, so some of the new features will be not known at all times, and when documentation is not up to date, the SA should be confident enough to reach out to other colleagues (fellow SAs, Competency Lead, Partner Advisory Services, askpricefx.com…) and ask for help and/or guidance