TEKenable firmly believes that a traditional training course provides limited value to most employees. The primary reasons for this are:

Specifically, public courses are generally designed to provide a broad overview and will cover many topics that any single attendee will not need to cover, at the expense of spending time and developing an understanding of those parts that are relevant. This lack of focus is inevitable, unless the course is brought in-house and tailored to the specific needs of the business, as we propose to do.

Most courses are academic in nature, a mixture of classroom style learning and exercises. The exercises are included to ensure the concentration of the attendees by providing a challenge. It is an attempt to make the course an active rather than a passive learning experience. To some extent this will succeed, but the exercises will, by necessity, be generic and failure to complete them does not have repercussions beyond the end of the course. TEKenable use a real project as the "exercise", which means that concentration will be substantially improved as the “exercise” is highly relevant, substantial and has longevity beyond the duration of the course.

Most course attendees will return from a course armed with some small experience, some knowledge that is fairly tenuously held and return to their normal jobs. After a few weeks the knowledge is substantially reduced and the value of the course greatly diminished unless the person is able to exercise that training immediately in the normal course of their job. TEKenable deliver a “training” period that is significantly longer than a normal course where the knowledge is applied in the course of the attendee’s job immediately and hence repeatedly reinforced.

The final problem with traditional training courses is that the attendees complete the short course and are then abandoned to fend for themselves. The development of systems is a complex affair and staff new to this skill, even if already experienced programmers, benefit greatly from the occasional presence of a mentor. The mentor acts as a safety net to ensure that the training is reinforced, that the training is ongoing and that the staff have the confidence to approach significant problems without the risk of making fundamental mistakes.

More effective than traditional forms of training

Delivers Satisfied, Motivated and Experienced Staff

Incorporates application development with focused on-site training

Reduces Risk and reinforces learning through ongoing mentoring compared to the standard train and abandon approach

Cost effective, a single training budget spend delivers training, mentoring and application development

Will train team by implementing a ‘real’ project which creates a very focused schedule

To understand how TEKenable could enhance your staff training and deliver real projects in the process,contact us or see our case studies.

See also Design, Deliver and Review.