Progress in information technology (IT) has been remarkable, but the best truly is yet to come: the power of IT as a human enabler is just beginning to be realized. Whether the nation builds on this momentum or plateaus prematurely depends on today's decisions about fundamental research in computer science (CS) and the related fields behind IT.
Information Technology is committed to the values of
• Reliability
• Professionalism and integrity
• Efficiency and effectiveness
• Innovation
• Excellence
• Collaboration and teamwork
I see myself as a systems analyst or an IT consultant 10 years from now is an IT consultant.
IT Consultant
It works in partnership with clients, advising them how to use information technology in order to meet their business objectives or overcome problems. Consultants work to improve the structure and efficiency and of an organization’s IT systems.
IT consultants may be involved in a variety of activities, including marketing, project management, client relationship management and systems development.
Strategic Plan
Organizations that want their information technology (IT) Training and Education programs to be successful must carefully distinguish between the two concepts. Training is the process by which people gain tangible skills that they can start applying immediately. Education, on the other hand, is process by which people gain knowledge and understanding. Training and education can occur in class room settings, in mentoring sessions, or through apprenticing. The point is that we need both training and education to help round out the skills. This approach is comprised of six activities:
1. Assess
It is critical that you get IT professionals the right Training and Education at the right time, and the only way that you can do this is through regular assessment of their skills. To do this successfully you must:
a.Directly involve the staff member. Minimally, you need to find out what their goals are and where they think that they need to improve their skills. Better yet, they may have a very good idea as to what training that they need, opinions which they gained through talking with the colleagues and their own research.
b.Assess regularly. Although many organizations will update a person's skills as part of their annual staff review, this often isn't sufficient. It's unlikely that you'll identify the training courses that someone will need on a project starting in August during their annual review in December of the previous year. Good points to assess someone's skills include: during their regular staff review, at the beginning of a project, and when they think that they need an assessment done.
c.Keep the assessment simple. The best way to do a skills assessment is to simply have the staff member sit down and have a discussion with one or more experienced people that understand both the person's current skills as well as what is needed to do their job successfully.
d. Go at it from different angles. An experienced team lead may be able to give someone good advice for what Training and Education then need to become a better Visual Basic programmer, but may not be able to provide good advice when it comes to communication skills. Remember, there are different categories of IT skills.
2. Specific Introductory Training
IT professionals need specific, introductory training, on new subjects. A serious mistake that many organizations make is that they assume that because someone is in a senior position that they don't need introductory training. For example, an experienced Java programmer could very likely benefit from a two-day introductory course in user interface design and a senior executive an introduction to Extreme Programming (XP).
3. Mentoring and Hands-on Experience
Once the initial training is complete, you are ready to begin applying their new skills. It is at this point that many organizations run into trouble because they mistakenly believe that their staff now has the necessary skills to do the job on their own. Often, nothing could be further from the truth.
Mentors should participate as active members of your project team, not just as teachers. For a mentor to be a productive member of the team you will need a ratio of one mentor for every two or three novices, anything more and the mentor will be too busy mentoring to get anything done on your project. There is nothing wrong with this, as long as there are other experienced people available to develop the complex portions of your application. Project teams consisting of one expert and a large number of novices are likely to fail.
Mentoring is in addition to training and education, not a replacement for it. One of the roles of a mentor is to help your project team to see the big picture and will need to refocus the team occasionally by explaining how new methods can be applied to solve development problems. Mentors should be involved throughout the entire project, especially at the early stages of it, so that the learning process gets off on the right track.
4. Advanced Training
After several months of hands-on experience, developers should return to the classroom for advanced training. The experience that developers have gained gives them the knowledge that they need to understand and absorb the material presented in the advanced courses. For example, an advanced modeling course is likely to concentrate on analysis and design patterns and an advanced programming course will convey a series of programming tips and tricks. Advanced training courses often combine both training and education aspects.
5. Support the Learning Experience
There is far more to the Training and Education process than formal classroom training. To support the learning experience you can promote:
a. Learning teams. Learning teams are small, cross-functional groups of people who are given the task of working together to learn a particular new technology or technique. Learning teams are often asked to produce a small application for the company, perhaps something for the human resources or marketing departments. They are usually asked to spend between 20 and 50% of their working hours on the mini-project, devoting the rest of their time to their current responsibilities. Members of the learning team will still need initial training and mentoring, otherwise they are likely to flounder.
b. Reading groups. A common technique is for a group of people to choose to read a book together and then to get together and discuss it on a regular basis.
c. Bag-lunch training. These are one-hour mini-lessons held during the daily lunch break. The sessions are typically given by an expert in the subject, usually but not always one of your mentors, and will cover a wide range topics. Successful bag-lunch training programs typically involve 2 or 3 sessions a week with each individual session being given several times so that everyone has an opportunity to attend, minimally you should try to give a session once a week. Bag-lunch sessions are easy to do and really give a boost to the learning process.
d. Information access. Get people access to the Internet, magazine subscriptions, and books. There is a lot of information out there, much of which is free for the taking.
e. Mentoring
f. Computer-based training (CBT). CBT is also a valid Training and Education approach, especially when combined with formal training and mentoring. Many organizations provide their employees access to introductory CBT courses before sending them on formal training courses, giving them a head-start on learning. Unfortunately, CBT by itself is of minimal value by itself. Most aspects of software development are simply too complex, and evolve too quickly, to be captured in a CBT course. Furthermore, when you have questions about something you need to talk to an expert to get them answered. A computer cannot do that for you, although a mentor can (mentoring and CBT are a powerful combination). In short, CBT is only part of the solution, albeit a potentially important one.
6. Training and Education Tips
Here are the several tips and techniques that lead to success in training and education:
a. Get your staff into the habit of learning. The rate of change in the information technology (IT) industry is simply too fast to allow someone to train once and then sit on their laurels.
b. Just-in-time (JIT) training is critical. Give your people training when they need it, not several months before or several months after. People will forget the majority of what they have learned less than a month later unless they apply their new skills immediately after training. Training typically occurs within the scope of a project, often at the beginning of it, so remember to include training in your project plans.
c. Educate as well as train. Training gives you the skills to do your job, education gives you the knowledge to understand your job. The most important thing that an educational program can do is to explain the interrelationships of the concepts and techniques.
d. Expect to train in a variety of skills. Software development is complex, and successful IT staff needs a wide range of skills.
e. Perform skills assessments for everyone. You need to understand someone’s current skills before you can develop an effective training plan for them. You'll also want to assess their skills on a regular basis to ensure that they are receiving the training and education that they need, many people unfortunately do not actively manage their own training plan.
f. Recognize that not everyone learns the same way. Some people learn best in the classroom, while others learn best by sitting down and working with a language, and others learn best through working with others. Because no training and education approach is perfect for everyone you will want to create an approach that can be modified to meet the needs of individual students. Flexibility is a key success factor.
g. Motivate everybody. Motivating junior developers is typically no problem: They are usually chomping at the bit to improve their development skills. Unfortunately some experienced developers aren’t so eager, perhaps they are afraid they will not be able to pick it up as fast as others. Given time and a flexible learning environment everyone can learn the new skills required in modern information technology shops, they just have to want to learn. A good strategy is to make the benefits of the new technique/technology, as well as the potential risks, apparent to everyone involved. If people understand what's in it for them, they'll be far more motivated that those who don't.
h. Expect to deal with bruised egos. A significant problem with transitioning experienced developers into new technologies or techniques is the fact that overnight they are go from being a recognized expert to a recognized novice. This hurts. Developers need to realize that if they apply themselves they can become experts once again, it just takes awhile.
i. Expect the “I’ve done it before” syndrome. For example I have argued for years that there is nothing new in agile software development, it's just a packaging of existing techniques which work really well. Familiarity with some of the underlying principles of a new technique makes it easy to convince yourself that you’ve been doing it all along. This problem is usually self correcting because as soon as someone starts to work on a real project with good mentors they quickly realize that there is a lot more to to the new technique than what they originally thought.
j.Recognize that you cannot retrain everyone at once. Except in very small IT shops you'll never transition your entire staff to a new technique all at once. It's too risky, it takes time to learn the ins and outs of new techniques within your environment, and frankly there are basic logistical problems you need to deal with. You need these people to keep your existing legacy systems up and running, but at the same time they want to be involved in the exciting new projects. My advice is to keep them up to date on what’s being learned on the project, let them know when and how they will be brought on to it, give them access to new tools on off-hours so they can learn on their own, invite them to bag-lunch training sessions, and give them access to books and magazines. Not everyone can be on the first project, but they can still be involved in the learning process. If you do not involve them you risk losing them.
k. Recognize that some colleges and universities are still not familiar with the new techniques that you want to adoptThe point is that traditional sources of training and education may not yet be available to you.
l. Getting people into training quickly. Once you have made the decision to adopt a new technology/technique get training in it as soon as possible. Although it is a very good idea to do some reading on your own, the bottom line is that it is too easy to misunderstand an issue and not realize it. Professional instructors can help you to learn the technique properly and to avoid gaining bad habits.
m. Teach from experience. Good instructors practice what they preach and that their hands-on experience gives them the confidence and the ability to address tough questions.
n. Recognize that people do not quit because they are trained. I'm often shocked to discover IT organizations that are unwilling to train their staff because they don't want to lose people to their competition, the implication being that they prefer to have staff that nobody else wants to hire. The reality is that developers quit because the money is not good enough, the work is not interesting enough, or because they do not like the people they’re working with. For example, agile software developers are paid more than non-agile developers (because they're worth it), and any organization that enters into agile software development had better be prepared to pay their people what they’re worth after training them and to provide them with interesting work. Agile developers are in demand and your competition would love to poach them from you. Treat your people well and they'll treat you well.
Reference:
http://www.ambysoft.com/essays/trainingAndEducation.html
http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=10795&page=1
http://www.prospects.ac.uk/p/types_of_job/it_consultant_job_description.jsp
Information Technology is committed to the values of
• Reliability
• Professionalism and integrity
• Efficiency and effectiveness
• Innovation
• Excellence
• Collaboration and teamwork
I see myself as a systems analyst or an IT consultant 10 years from now is an IT consultant.
IT Consultant
It works in partnership with clients, advising them how to use information technology in order to meet their business objectives or overcome problems. Consultants work to improve the structure and efficiency and of an organization’s IT systems.
IT consultants may be involved in a variety of activities, including marketing, project management, client relationship management and systems development.
Strategic Plan
Organizations that want their information technology (IT) Training and Education programs to be successful must carefully distinguish between the two concepts. Training is the process by which people gain tangible skills that they can start applying immediately. Education, on the other hand, is process by which people gain knowledge and understanding. Training and education can occur in class room settings, in mentoring sessions, or through apprenticing. The point is that we need both training and education to help round out the skills. This approach is comprised of six activities:
1. Assess
It is critical that you get IT professionals the right Training and Education at the right time, and the only way that you can do this is through regular assessment of their skills. To do this successfully you must:
a.Directly involve the staff member. Minimally, you need to find out what their goals are and where they think that they need to improve their skills. Better yet, they may have a very good idea as to what training that they need, opinions which they gained through talking with the colleagues and their own research.
b.Assess regularly. Although many organizations will update a person's skills as part of their annual staff review, this often isn't sufficient. It's unlikely that you'll identify the training courses that someone will need on a project starting in August during their annual review in December of the previous year. Good points to assess someone's skills include: during their regular staff review, at the beginning of a project, and when they think that they need an assessment done.
c.Keep the assessment simple. The best way to do a skills assessment is to simply have the staff member sit down and have a discussion with one or more experienced people that understand both the person's current skills as well as what is needed to do their job successfully.
d. Go at it from different angles. An experienced team lead may be able to give someone good advice for what Training and Education then need to become a better Visual Basic programmer, but may not be able to provide good advice when it comes to communication skills. Remember, there are different categories of IT skills.
2. Specific Introductory Training
IT professionals need specific, introductory training, on new subjects. A serious mistake that many organizations make is that they assume that because someone is in a senior position that they don't need introductory training. For example, an experienced Java programmer could very likely benefit from a two-day introductory course in user interface design and a senior executive an introduction to Extreme Programming (XP).
3. Mentoring and Hands-on Experience
Once the initial training is complete, you are ready to begin applying their new skills. It is at this point that many organizations run into trouble because they mistakenly believe that their staff now has the necessary skills to do the job on their own. Often, nothing could be further from the truth.
Mentors should participate as active members of your project team, not just as teachers. For a mentor to be a productive member of the team you will need a ratio of one mentor for every two or three novices, anything more and the mentor will be too busy mentoring to get anything done on your project. There is nothing wrong with this, as long as there are other experienced people available to develop the complex portions of your application. Project teams consisting of one expert and a large number of novices are likely to fail.
Mentoring is in addition to training and education, not a replacement for it. One of the roles of a mentor is to help your project team to see the big picture and will need to refocus the team occasionally by explaining how new methods can be applied to solve development problems. Mentors should be involved throughout the entire project, especially at the early stages of it, so that the learning process gets off on the right track.
4. Advanced Training
After several months of hands-on experience, developers should return to the classroom for advanced training. The experience that developers have gained gives them the knowledge that they need to understand and absorb the material presented in the advanced courses. For example, an advanced modeling course is likely to concentrate on analysis and design patterns and an advanced programming course will convey a series of programming tips and tricks. Advanced training courses often combine both training and education aspects.
5. Support the Learning Experience
There is far more to the Training and Education process than formal classroom training. To support the learning experience you can promote:
a. Learning teams. Learning teams are small, cross-functional groups of people who are given the task of working together to learn a particular new technology or technique. Learning teams are often asked to produce a small application for the company, perhaps something for the human resources or marketing departments. They are usually asked to spend between 20 and 50% of their working hours on the mini-project, devoting the rest of their time to their current responsibilities. Members of the learning team will still need initial training and mentoring, otherwise they are likely to flounder.
b. Reading groups. A common technique is for a group of people to choose to read a book together and then to get together and discuss it on a regular basis.
c. Bag-lunch training. These are one-hour mini-lessons held during the daily lunch break. The sessions are typically given by an expert in the subject, usually but not always one of your mentors, and will cover a wide range topics. Successful bag-lunch training programs typically involve 2 or 3 sessions a week with each individual session being given several times so that everyone has an opportunity to attend, minimally you should try to give a session once a week. Bag-lunch sessions are easy to do and really give a boost to the learning process.
d. Information access. Get people access to the Internet, magazine subscriptions, and books. There is a lot of information out there, much of which is free for the taking.
e. Mentoring
f. Computer-based training (CBT). CBT is also a valid Training and Education approach, especially when combined with formal training and mentoring. Many organizations provide their employees access to introductory CBT courses before sending them on formal training courses, giving them a head-start on learning. Unfortunately, CBT by itself is of minimal value by itself. Most aspects of software development are simply too complex, and evolve too quickly, to be captured in a CBT course. Furthermore, when you have questions about something you need to talk to an expert to get them answered. A computer cannot do that for you, although a mentor can (mentoring and CBT are a powerful combination). In short, CBT is only part of the solution, albeit a potentially important one.
6. Training and Education Tips
Here are the several tips and techniques that lead to success in training and education:
a. Get your staff into the habit of learning. The rate of change in the information technology (IT) industry is simply too fast to allow someone to train once and then sit on their laurels.
b. Just-in-time (JIT) training is critical. Give your people training when they need it, not several months before or several months after. People will forget the majority of what they have learned less than a month later unless they apply their new skills immediately after training. Training typically occurs within the scope of a project, often at the beginning of it, so remember to include training in your project plans.
c. Educate as well as train. Training gives you the skills to do your job, education gives you the knowledge to understand your job. The most important thing that an educational program can do is to explain the interrelationships of the concepts and techniques.
d. Expect to train in a variety of skills. Software development is complex, and successful IT staff needs a wide range of skills.
e. Perform skills assessments for everyone. You need to understand someone’s current skills before you can develop an effective training plan for them. You'll also want to assess their skills on a regular basis to ensure that they are receiving the training and education that they need, many people unfortunately do not actively manage their own training plan.
f. Recognize that not everyone learns the same way. Some people learn best in the classroom, while others learn best by sitting down and working with a language, and others learn best through working with others. Because no training and education approach is perfect for everyone you will want to create an approach that can be modified to meet the needs of individual students. Flexibility is a key success factor.
g. Motivate everybody. Motivating junior developers is typically no problem: They are usually chomping at the bit to improve their development skills. Unfortunately some experienced developers aren’t so eager, perhaps they are afraid they will not be able to pick it up as fast as others. Given time and a flexible learning environment everyone can learn the new skills required in modern information technology shops, they just have to want to learn. A good strategy is to make the benefits of the new technique/technology, as well as the potential risks, apparent to everyone involved. If people understand what's in it for them, they'll be far more motivated that those who don't.
h. Expect to deal with bruised egos. A significant problem with transitioning experienced developers into new technologies or techniques is the fact that overnight they are go from being a recognized expert to a recognized novice. This hurts. Developers need to realize that if they apply themselves they can become experts once again, it just takes awhile.
i. Expect the “I’ve done it before” syndrome. For example I have argued for years that there is nothing new in agile software development, it's just a packaging of existing techniques which work really well. Familiarity with some of the underlying principles of a new technique makes it easy to convince yourself that you’ve been doing it all along. This problem is usually self correcting because as soon as someone starts to work on a real project with good mentors they quickly realize that there is a lot more to to the new technique than what they originally thought.
j.Recognize that you cannot retrain everyone at once. Except in very small IT shops you'll never transition your entire staff to a new technique all at once. It's too risky, it takes time to learn the ins and outs of new techniques within your environment, and frankly there are basic logistical problems you need to deal with. You need these people to keep your existing legacy systems up and running, but at the same time they want to be involved in the exciting new projects. My advice is to keep them up to date on what’s being learned on the project, let them know when and how they will be brought on to it, give them access to new tools on off-hours so they can learn on their own, invite them to bag-lunch training sessions, and give them access to books and magazines. Not everyone can be on the first project, but they can still be involved in the learning process. If you do not involve them you risk losing them.
k. Recognize that some colleges and universities are still not familiar with the new techniques that you want to adoptThe point is that traditional sources of training and education may not yet be available to you.
l. Getting people into training quickly. Once you have made the decision to adopt a new technology/technique get training in it as soon as possible. Although it is a very good idea to do some reading on your own, the bottom line is that it is too easy to misunderstand an issue and not realize it. Professional instructors can help you to learn the technique properly and to avoid gaining bad habits.
m. Teach from experience. Good instructors practice what they preach and that their hands-on experience gives them the confidence and the ability to address tough questions.
n. Recognize that people do not quit because they are trained. I'm often shocked to discover IT organizations that are unwilling to train their staff because they don't want to lose people to their competition, the implication being that they prefer to have staff that nobody else wants to hire. The reality is that developers quit because the money is not good enough, the work is not interesting enough, or because they do not like the people they’re working with. For example, agile software developers are paid more than non-agile developers (because they're worth it), and any organization that enters into agile software development had better be prepared to pay their people what they’re worth after training them and to provide them with interesting work. Agile developers are in demand and your competition would love to poach them from you. Treat your people well and they'll treat you well.
Reference:
http://www.ambysoft.com/essays/trainingAndEducation.html
http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=10795&page=1
http://www.prospects.ac.uk/p/types_of_job/it_consultant_job_description.jsp
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