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Building Better Training Opportunities

  • November 26, 2018 at 9:38 pm

    #373163

    Comments posted to this topic are about the item Building Better Training Opportunities

  • November 27, 2018 at 12:12 am

    #2014599

    There needs to be a training strategy with clearly stated goals, provision for training time and a plan to use those skills once the course is complete.
    Without such thought processes only a handful will make use of the facility and for them it will be an indulgence.
    I had some bench time so I did a Ruby course. Im never likely to use Ruby in my current position so it was interesting but not useful

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  • November 27, 2018 at 1:55 am

    #2014607

    To learn all you need to do is ask the right questions. This is much harder than it seems. Look at how hard it is to ask a good question on a forum! A good start is to go and look at forums like SSC and Stack and find some good questions that have or haven't been answered in an area that interests you. The ones that have been answered you can learn a lot from and the ones that haven't you can probably learn even more.

  • November 27, 2018 at 5:02 am

    #2014620

    At one point our company did lunch and learns. I thought that was a helpful component of an overall training program.

    412-977-3526 call/text

  • November 27, 2018 at 5:30 am

    #2014626

    robert.sterbal 56890 - Tuesday, November 27, 2018 5:02 AM

    At one point our company did lunch and learns. I thought that was a helpful component of an overall training program.

    Agree!  It also fosters collaboration and promotes a wider appreciation for other roles and projects.  Anything that promotes communication within an organisation is a thing to be encouraged.

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  • November 27, 2018 at 7:32 am

    #2014646

    Personally, I enjoy my stable situation and am NOT looking to move up or on, or whatever. But... I also don't want to sit idle hoping that this lasts forever and want to be prepared for the next job should that become needed. One thing that I have noticed though is that when employers get a training option, they seldom actually ask what option works best for the group. I had a boss that did something unique. He had a dialog with the team. He also made sure we could come talk individually with him so he could understand what best worked for each of us. Then he chose a service that would meet a good share of needs across the team and set realistic goals for usage. 

    Some people learn from books best. Others have a strong preference for videos. But realistic goals are a great thing.

  • November 27, 2018 at 7:38 am

    #2014649

    There is something to be said of goals and deadlines. Even artificially placed by yourself. It can motivate you to get through things. It does not have to be like school where you take quizzes and tests but one should test themselves in some way to gauge their learning.

  • November 27, 2018 at 8:45 am

    #2014670

    robert.sterbal 56890 - Tuesday, November 27, 2018 5:02 AM

    At one point our company did lunch and learns. I thought that was a helpful component of an overall training program.

    Agree. I didn't always like prepping for mine, but I did learn a lot from others.

  • November 27, 2018 at 1:31 pm

    #2014715

    I recently got added to the company's PluralSight subscription and have found the content and presentation to be quite good. It helps when your employer is forthcoming about their future plans for which you can use as a learning path. There is also a ton of material on YouTube; both from Microsoft internally and from recorded presentations at PASS, user groups, etc. The hard part is deciding what to learn.
    In the age of the internet, if you're not learning, it's because you're not trying. The combined efforts of the government, your employer, and Google couldn't block a curious person from learning. Accessing information is what we do for a living.

    "Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Instead, seek what they sought." - Matsuo Basho

  • November 27, 2018 at 7:56 pm

    #2014739

    WOW, excellent ideas Steve! And very challenging.

    Rod

  • November 27, 2018 at 10:10 pm

    #2014743

    Heh... there's nothing more challenging than real life.  If you want some problems to work on for training, look at the code you have.  Develop a "Continuous Improvement Project" where someone has identified some performance challenged code and then fix it.  Of course, you have to train yourself or have someone train you in the process but that's actually not the big hurdle.  The big hurdle will be getting management to buy into it even though it solves both the problem of training and the problem of performance challenged code.  It's a Win-Win if done correctly.  Yeah... you can even have contests.  Identify the code and offer a reward for the best code, which should include proper functionality (of course), immediate performance benefits within the scope of the data currently available with a 2x improvement being the minimum acceptable, better readability/maintainability, and scale-ability improvements.  Of course, that can't turn into the full time job for anyone but allocate a half day a week for such a reward driven endeavor and see how much time people spend after hours on it.  Well, except for those that post "Urgent" posts on this and other forums but, at least they're learning something. 😀

    --Jeff Moden

    RBAR is pronounced "ree-bar" and is a "Modenism" for Row-By-Agonizing-Row.
    First step towards the paradigm shift of writing Set Based code:
    ________Stop thinking about what you want to do to a ROW... think, instead, of what you want to do to a COLUMN.

    Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.

    Helpful Links:
    How to post code problems
    How to Post Performance Problems
    Create a Tally Function (fnTally)

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