Making Meetings Count, Part 1

Let's take a look at a possible scenario. Your training and development
budget will allow attending three tech conferences or seminars for the
year. Your department has nine people who are at different skill levels,
some with cross-over knowledge, some specialists. New programming
practices and IT essential knowledge is growing at exponential rates.
Your people want to stay abreast of the changes so that:

1. They don't get bored with their work.
2. They can keep their skills honed in order to deploy the right
solutions (and be ready for the next career opportunity).
3. They can demonstrate their expertise in positive, tangible ways
to others.

All of your people are important to you. You consider them key players
and you want to keep them. But budget figures are pretty inelastic --
there's no way to morph $20,000 into $80,000. Maybe there is. You need
to think outside the dots.

In-House Training
One solution is to have in-house training on a periodic basis. Experts
agree that in-house training has many benefits, among them cost
effectiveness and reach. Another is a sense of team building. There are
a number of ways to do in-house training, each with some benefits and
offsetting detractors (although the latter is minimal).

Outsource It
One method is to outsource your training, that is, have an outsider
prepare a program on the subject you determine is needed by your people.
What happens is you get a prepackaged program on a typical subject that
is taught to your staff. What some houses do is conference with the
manager before delivering the seminar or workshop in order to prepare
the right type of customized training. The downside of this is that you
are busy and may not have time for this preliminary packaging
conference.

Train a Trainer
An alternative to outsourcing your training is to develop one person on
your staff who becomes the department trainer. This is good if you have
a lot of shrinking violets and a few who are good at and want to be in
front of the masses showing off their knowledge and helping others get
the picture. This is also a very cost effective method because you don't
need to have the preliminary development conferences. Just point out to
House Trainer Pro that it may be time to do a class on the latest
enhancements to C++ and it would be good to do so at the next department
meeting.

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