May 6, 2010 at 1:42 pm
One more tip: document what you teach, and have people let you know if they use something. This would be important for continuing funding, or further training.
May 6, 2010 at 2:11 pm
CirquedeSQLeil (5/6/2010)
Lynn Pettis (5/6/2010)
Jeff Moden (5/5/2010)
Something that people either aren't aware of or have forgotten... the option of in-house training by the resident experts is a powerful tool that's frequently over looked. It also builds "esprit de corps" and also helps the resident experts because you do have to know your stuff to teach it.I used Lunch'n'Learns a lot in the last couple of companies. You'll be amazed at the kind of performance you can get out of people for the price of a couple of pizzas, some soda, and a nice salad. It's real good practice for those making the presentations and it looks awesome on a resume, as well.
I'd like to try this here, any tips on how to go about developing short classes like this? I relly have no clear idea how to start.
First get team leads to buy in. Then get your manager to buy in. Always make the lunch n learn an optional meeting. You could also do it as a breakfast and learn (bring in breakfast items instead).
If you can, I would start off by footing the bill for the food and whatnot the first couple of times.
Pick your topics ahead of time, create a presentation and demo. Try to get the leads from each area to also create a 10-15 minute presentation. The lunch n learn only needs to be 30 minutes of presentation but can be longer if people are interested. Leave some time at the end for socializing. Send out invites early and remind people.
If possible, also try some different venues so people can get out of the office and not have to be in the office all day 1 day a month.
Last tidbit, once a month is a good interval. If you want to do them more frequently - go ahead but not too often.
Well, the lead buy-in on the DBA team is a given (that's me).
I guess the hard part is coming up with the topics and then creating the presentations. Tips?
May 6, 2010 at 2:29 pm
Steve Jones - Editor (5/6/2010)
One more tip: document what you teach, and have people let you know if they use something. This would be important for continuing funding, or further training.
Absolutely agree, but in the real world I have found that this is much harder to get people to document what they teach or do, in many shops, simply because of job security issues they may have, particularly if management just won't enforce it for whatever reasons. 😀
"Technology is a weird thing. It brings you great gifts with one hand, and it stabs you in the back with the other. ...:-D"
May 6, 2010 at 3:31 pm
Lynn Pettis (5/6/2010)
CirquedeSQLeil (5/6/2010)
Lynn Pettis (5/6/2010)
Jeff Moden (5/5/2010)
Something that people either aren't aware of or have forgotten... the option of in-house training by the resident experts is a powerful tool that's frequently over looked. It also builds "esprit de corps" and also helps the resident experts because you do have to know your stuff to teach it.I used Lunch'n'Learns a lot in the last couple of companies. You'll be amazed at the kind of performance you can get out of people for the price of a couple of pizzas, some soda, and a nice salad. It's real good practice for those making the presentations and it looks awesome on a resume, as well.
I'd like to try this here, any tips on how to go about developing short classes like this? I relly have no clear idea how to start.
First get team leads to buy in. Then get your manager to buy in. Always make the lunch n learn an optional meeting. You could also do it as a breakfast and learn (bring in breakfast items instead).
If you can, I would start off by footing the bill for the food and whatnot the first couple of times.
Pick your topics ahead of time, create a presentation and demo. Try to get the leads from each area to also create a 10-15 minute presentation. The lunch n learn only needs to be 30 minutes of presentation but can be longer if people are interested. Leave some time at the end for socializing. Send out invites early and remind people.
If possible, also try some different venues so people can get out of the office and not have to be in the office all day 1 day a month.
Last tidbit, once a month is a good interval. If you want to do them more frequently - go ahead but not too often.
Well, the lead buy-in on the DBA team is a given (that's me).
I guess the hard part is coming up with the topics and then creating the presentations. Tips?
Since you would like to involve other groups (development, report writers, engineering, server admins) to teach them about database stuff, you should get their leads to buy in too. Then invite them to give a presentation so their is cross training for all.
Jason...AKA CirqueDeSQLeil
_______________________________________________
I have given a name to my pain...MCM SQL Server, MVP
SQL RNNR
Posting Performance Based Questions - Gail Shaw[/url]
Learn Extended Events
May 6, 2010 at 3:33 pm
The second part of Lynn's question - what to present on in lunch n learns.
Anything you want that you have been working on.
Best practices
Indexes
Mirroring
Disk setup for optimal DB performance
Performance tuning
Execution Plans
Something you came across at SSC that was of particular interest to you.
Jason...AKA CirqueDeSQLeil
_______________________________________________
I have given a name to my pain...MCM SQL Server, MVP
SQL RNNR
Posting Performance Based Questions - Gail Shaw[/url]
Learn Extended Events
May 6, 2010 at 3:38 pm
Lynn,
I'd present on what people ask you questions about on a regular basis, or what problems you are constantly solving. That's a good place to start. It teaches, and it helps you.
The practical stuff might be more interesting than the theoretical stuff to start with.
You might even ask people from the UG that present if you can use their presentation deck and deliver inside your company.
May 6, 2010 at 3:39 pm
Trick is getting some of them to buy in. Sys Admins? Good luck, we can't even get them to tell us why our servers crashed, or where our virtual servers reside or how many are on each physical host.
Developers? We are them. Well, do have the PeopleSoft group, and I know their lead would buy-in on this no problem.
The other groups, not sure, will bounce it of the leads in our next Team Lead meeting.
Guess what I really need are tips for writing up presentations. The biggest thing I remember from reading is "don't read from your power points, the audience can read."
Not strong on the public speaking side.
May 6, 2010 at 3:51 pm
Lynn Pettis (5/6/2010)
Trick is getting some of them to buy in. Sys Admins? Good luck, we can't even get them to tell us why our servers crashed, or where our virtual servers reside or how many are on each physical host.Developers? We are them. Well, do have the PeopleSoft group, and I know their lead would buy-in on this no problem.
The other groups, not sure, will bounce it of the leads in our next Team Lead meeting.
Guess what I really need are tips for writing up presentations. The biggest thing I remember from reading is "don't read from your power points, the audience can read."
Not strong on the public speaking side.
Think of it as less intimidating than what you do here on SSC. More people around the world read what you say here than will at your lunch and learns.
As for the Sysadmins - free food is the part that helps to get them to buy in initially.
Limit the amount of info on your Powerpoints and just use them as a guide to direct the speaking points.
Jason...AKA CirqueDeSQLeil
_______________________________________________
I have given a name to my pain...MCM SQL Server, MVP
SQL RNNR
Posting Performance Based Questions - Gail Shaw[/url]
Learn Extended Events
May 6, 2010 at 4:17 pm
And yet, keep in mind your future intent for the powerpoints. If you want them to be resources for a knowledge base rather than inventing additional documentation, you need to have the powerpoint tell the story by itself.
Doesn't mean you have to read it like a script.
Biggest thing is just to remember that in this scenario, you're the expert delivering knowledge they want. Tell them what you would want to know about the topic in as concise a fashion as possible.
---------------------------------------------------------
How best to post your question[/url]
How to post performance problems[/url]
Tally Table:What it is and how it replaces a loop[/url]
"stewsterl 80804 (10/16/2009)I guess when you stop and try to understand the solution provided you not only learn, but save yourself some headaches when you need to make any slight changes."
May 6, 2010 at 4:19 pm
Lynn Pettis (5/6/2010)
Trick is getting some of them to buy in. Sys Admins? Good luck, we can't even get them to tell us why our servers crashed, or where our virtual servers reside or how many are on each physical host.
Sounds like you have three topics there that you could present as 'what we need to know about x,y and z', and invite the sysadmins to listen in and offer their expert opinions.
---------------------------------------------------------
How best to post your question[/url]
How to post performance problems[/url]
Tally Table:What it is and how it replaces a loop[/url]
"stewsterl 80804 (10/16/2009)I guess when you stop and try to understand the solution provided you not only learn, but save yourself some headaches when you need to make any slight changes."
May 6, 2010 at 5:19 pm
jcrawf02 (5/6/2010)
ask people for topics they'd like to see, there may be things they're working on that they can use help with.
That's an outstanding idea. Just keep in mind that people won't ask for things like "How does a Tally table work" if they've never heard about it before. You sometimes have to lead them to the water. Others, you have to tell them what water is. 🙂
--Jeff Moden
Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.
May 6, 2010 at 5:40 pm
Lynn Pettis (5/6/2010)
CirquedeSQLeil (5/6/2010)
Lynn Pettis (5/6/2010)
Jeff Moden (5/5/2010)
Something that people either aren't aware of or have forgotten... the option of in-house training by the resident experts is a powerful tool that's frequently over looked. It also builds "esprit de corps" and also helps the resident experts because you do have to know your stuff to teach it.I used Lunch'n'Learns a lot in the last couple of companies. You'll be amazed at the kind of performance you can get out of people for the price of a couple of pizzas, some soda, and a nice salad. It's real good practice for those making the presentations and it looks awesome on a resume, as well.
I'd like to try this here, any tips on how to go about developing short classes like this? I relly have no clear idea how to start.
First get team leads to buy in. Then get your manager to buy in. Always make the lunch n learn an optional meeting. You could also do it as a breakfast and learn (bring in breakfast items instead).
If you can, I would start off by footing the bill for the food and whatnot the first couple of times.
Pick your topics ahead of time, create a presentation and demo. Try to get the leads from each area to also create a 10-15 minute presentation. The lunch n learn only needs to be 30 minutes of presentation but can be longer if people are interested. Leave some time at the end for socializing. Send out invites early and remind people.
If possible, also try some different venues so people can get out of the office and not have to be in the office all day 1 day a month.
Last tidbit, once a month is a good interval. If you want to do them more frequently - go ahead but not too often.
Well, the lead buy-in on the DBA team is a given (that's me).
I guess the hard part is coming up with the topics and then creating the presentations. Tips?
I absolutely agree with what Steve said... start off with the low hanging fruit of what people are currently having problems with. The first LnL I taught was actually a 3-parter with 1 session per week. We had a huge problem of BA's trying to do things with dates and basically crippling the reporting server because all they knew about was CONVERT. They knew nothing of DATEDIFF, DATEADD, DATEPART, or DATENAME and they sure didn't know anything about sargeability of WHERE clauses. So, I made up handouts for each session and did a whole lot of "chalk'n'talk" on the White Board while they were eating and taking notes. I made sure the page numbers on the handouts were contiguously numbered and gave them a table of contents and a title page on the last session. I even punched binder holes for them. Most of the folks immediately put the handouts in 3 ring binders and it wasnt' uncommon to walk down the hallway and see the handouts open on the desk while someone was trying to write a query.
Each session was a full hour long. For more advanced sessions, I recommend 45 minutes with a 15 minute QnA afterwards. Those sometimes turn into brainstorming sessions for problems that people haven't previously admitted.
In the company after that, the big problem was with indexes and even the Sr. Software Engineers showed up for that one. Of course, the Tally table (with an explanation of Pseudo-Cursors) is always a favorite even if it doesn't solve a particular problem.
--Jeff Moden
Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.
May 10, 2010 at 6:50 am
Jeff Moden (5/6/2010)
jcrawf02 (5/6/2010)
ask people for topics they'd like to see, there may be things they're working on that they can use help with.That's an outstanding idea. Just keep in mind that people won't ask for things like "How does a Tally table work" if they've never heard about it before. You sometimes have to lead them to the water. Others, you have to tell them what water is. 🙂
Well, as mama always said, "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him think"...;-)
---------------------------------------------------------
How best to post your question[/url]
How to post performance problems[/url]
Tally Table:What it is and how it replaces a loop[/url]
"stewsterl 80804 (10/16/2009)I guess when you stop and try to understand the solution provided you not only learn, but save yourself some headaches when you need to make any slight changes."
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