MPE Training:

A Different Approach

 

 

 

 

Glenn J. Koster, Sr.

Managed Business Solutions, LLC

 

HP-World Conference & Exposition

San Francisco, CA

August 20, 1999

[A disclaimer is in order before I proceed.  I want every one to recognize that I am extremely proud of the company that I work for.  However, the comments that I am about to make are not intended as a solicitation of business or as an infomercial for MBS.  The information is provided as a background to provide you, the audience, with a clear perspective of our training issues – and how we decided to implement a solution to some very real issues.]

 

The Problem

 

In late 1997, Managed Business Solutions recognized that we had a serious problem on our hands.  Founded in 1994 with a total of 3 employees, MBS had grown to a staff of approximately 80 consultants.  Of those 80, 27 were new to MBS in 1997.  But the growth was not our real problem – training was – and not for the reasons that would typically come to mind.  In a nutshell, we deduced that our training problem was related to the following factors:

 

·        MBS had actively chosen to specialize in the HP-UX and MPE/iX arenas.  This limited our available talent pool for every available opening.  While it is true that the IT industry as a whole has witnessed a tremendous lack of able, trained professionals over the last several years, it is even more intense in the MPE arena because of the nature of the beast.  As a proprietary, yet open, operating system, many of the new college graduates have a tendency to avoid the 3000 arena like the plague.  The vast majority of experienced MPE techies were comfortably ensconced in ideal positions – unwilling, or unable, to move.  To add fuel to the fire, the HP 3000 was just beginning a resurgence that was unprecedented in HP corporate history.

 

·        MBS was located primarily in northern Colorado (Loveland, Fort Collins, and Greeley).  Fully supportive of the work-at-home concept, MBS had consultants spread from California to Florida and from Montana to Texas.  This made training issues a major concern – and logistical nightmare.

 

·        In 1997, the availability of adequate training in the HP 3000 arena was sparse.  There were a number of third party firms which did training primarily as a sideline to their primary functional businesses – either selling software or selling hardware.  Many of these training options were, by design, limited to either system management / operations type courses or to very specific performance tuning or software courses.  The typical courses available from HP were far out of the affordable price range, at least as far as MBS was concerned.

 

·        MBS had, and continues to have, a very unique culture.  As an employee owned company, MBS is modeled after HP.  This is apparent in several different areas, but primarily in our belief in a very strict values oriented approach to business.  In fact, our culture is so important to the way that we do business that I believe virtually every employee could tell you what our values are – but few could recite our mission!  So, now instead of just needing to supply technical training, we had the added problem of cultural training for all new employees.

 

·        We lacked the physical infrastructure to implement many of the latest technological solutions.  Unlike many of our counter parts, MBS does not have an internal system for development and training.  We also do not have an intranet.  All of our technical solutions had to be able to be implemented over standard ISP solutions or borrowed infrastructure.

 

·        Finally, we were in the middle of a merger with a firm of similar values – but a vastly different market audience.  At the time, Managed Systems Solutions, which did the technical consulting, was merging with The People Business, which tackles the thorny issues of personnel concerns and soft skills training.  The end result is what we know today as Managed Business Solutions.

 

The Options

 

What could a growing company, desperately in need of qualified personnel do to meet the growing demands of our business? 

 

·         We could raid existing shops.  We have been accused of that despite the fact that MBS has never actively recruited from existing 3000 shops.  We have several groups of people who have migrated almost simultaneously from certain shops, like DISC, but they were never recruited.

 

·         We could bite the big dollars and utilize HP training as needed, sending new personnel as they came on board to regularly scheduled HP classes.  This was not entirely out of the realm of possibility because the Fort Collins HP site has an excellent training facility – just a paucity of scheduled courses.

 

·         We could have some one else develop a customized training program for our firm.  This was also considered, but discarded as a logical solution because of several independent factors.  We have a number of employees with 15 to 20 years of experience on the HP 3000.  Why not utilize their knowledge?  We were in the process of merging with a company whose primary business was training.  It didn’t make sense to hire out for what they could provide.  Finally, we had many staffers who had experience as technical trainers in another life.  If somehow we could put it all together, we might be able to achieve a considerable cost savings.  The question was how…

 

Typically when we talk about training solutions, one conjures up some stereotype about the company training program.  In reality, training solutions are much more complex than this would imply.  Among the issues that a company has to deal with are the following:

 

·         Location.   Traditional biases limit many companies to what is commonly referred to as “classroom” instruction.  However, the options may also include such ideas as web-based delivery, computer-based training, “on-the-job” training, and peer-to-peer instruction.  In fact, all five of these methods are common in the HP training environment.

 

·         Organizational Structure.  Many companies have forced themselves into a veritable corner with implementation of a “training group”.  This sort of approach calls for the creation of a separate functional area in the company whose sole responsibility is to provide training programs for the firm.  The new thinking is something called the corporate university.  We discuss the nuances of the organization structure a little later.

 

·         Presentation Style.  If you limit your options to traditional classroom instruction, you also limit your presentation options.  Possible presentation styles include enough options to fill a book – and a rather large one at that.  For argument, let’s suggest a few: materials could be presented via lecture, moderated chat, focus groups discussions, multimedia productions, drama presentations, classroom discovery, or guided tour instruction.  While it is possible to utilize most of these styles in many of the different delivery locations, it is more correct to realize that some are better suited to a particular location than others. 

 

·         Content Creation.  This is really the nuts and bolts of any training course.  What do you really need and want to teach.  It is very unlikely that another firm can assess your training priorities as well as you can.  The end result is that for a training program to be most effective, your firm must be involved from the very start of the content creation process.

 

The Solution

 

MBS decided to implement our training program under the guise of a corporate university.  In a thinly veiled form, the corporate university is strikingly similar to the traditional training models.  In its’ most complex form, the corporate university is vastly different.  A true corporate university approach to training encompasses the following characteristics:

 

·         Multiple training location methodologies.  Most corporate universities include a mix of styles, but usually include at least classroom instruction and web-based training.  The web methodologies work for those solutions where it is more important to be able to work at one’s own pace.  The classroom instruction concepts are still needed for interaction type courses, such as GroupsWork.  The added benefit of the classroom is the interaction between employees who may not otherwise have a need to interact. 

 

·         Multiple content presentation styles.  For many firms, limiting the amount of classroom lecture time is a primary goal.  It is a truism of any training program that the greatest amount of learning and retention is obtained by doing rather than listening.

 

·         Flexible, scheduled course curriculum.   It’s great to have a company training program, but if the offerings are too sparse, it is a rare employee who can truly benefit from the program.

 

·         Responsiveness.  Hand in hand with flexibility is the idea that a corporate university must be responsive to changing business needs.  One of the problems facing traditional institutions of learning is a lack of responsiveness to the changing educational needs of society.

 

·         Accountability.   Many corporate training programs are relegated to a specific department.  Corporate universities are traditionally aligned at a business unit level – responsible for ROI on the educational dollar just like a sales unit would be responsible for the cost of sales.

 

·         Certifiable.  True corporate universities are often aligned with institutions of higher learning for much of the course work.  This arrangement often provides quality instructors – at a very reasonable cost.  The institutions, on the other hand, get access to real life needs that often can’t been gleaned from the ivory tower.

 

·         Repeatable training.  It is imperative that any training experience developed through the corporate university be repeatable so that all employees, both current and future, could benefit equally.

 

·         Separate Schools of Instruction.  Most corporate universities are split into at least “cultural schools” and “business schools”. 

 

·         Community Focus.  Virtually every effective corporate university is not afraid to open the doors to members of the community.  I will readily admit that many define community in a very narrow manner – limiting the term in some cases to immediate family members or customers.  The truly effective cu’s open their doors to the true communities in which they find themselves.

 

·         Research.  In a true institution of higher learning, the majority of the funding and benefits to the learning process come from doing research.  In the corporate university arena, the true benefit comes from having access to the greatest minds in the company to research solutions to corporate problems. 

 

With this as our model, MBS set out to establish a corporate university in the fall of 1997.  Our charter was to create an institution within MBS that would reduce the time that it takes to bring an new employee up to speed – both technically and culturally.  The goal was to create a structure that would allow MBS to hire non-MPE trained personnel and have them functioning efficiently within a short period of time – and at a reasonable cost.  Our implementation of the corporate university structure has allowed us to do just that.  The typical new employee is now a fully functioning team member in 1/3 of the time under our previous model.  In addition, we offer most of our courses on a regular basis to our existing staff, new employees – and even our end customers. 

 

As part of our solution, we decided to focus on 4 schools.

 

·         Technical School – teaching courses in MPE, UNIX and Windows technologies.

·         Business School – teaching courses in non-technical areas that directly affect our business.  For instance, our first course in this school was an accounting 101 course to teach the fundamentals of our accounting practices to the employee owners of MBS.

·         School of Change Management – emphasizing courses in managing change in the corporate environment. 

·         School of Interpersonal Skills – emphasizing such courses as “GroupsWork” which deal with team skills development.

 

Where are we?

 

·         Technological Innovations…  One of the early decisions we made was to utilize existing quality programs that already exist for many of the presentation mediums, including computer-based and web-based training.  The difficulty is that there are so many different training companies for some areas that it is impossible to obtain a clear assessment of the quality of these programs.  We have had some tremendous failures – but some really good successes as well.  MBS is currently exploring the possibility of beginning a clearing house for educational materials.

 

·         Distributed learning options…   As you may recall, one of our problems that we faced was a geographically dispersed employee base.  What we have chosen to do at this point is utilize a combination of NetMeeting and conference calls to provide classroom style training to non-Colorado personnel.  In addition, virtually training program provider with whom we have partnered has been accessible to remote employees.

 

·         Need Based Training…  MBS is able to effectively create class content on demand.  We started with a series of “introductory level” courses.  In mid-1998 we began the process of introducing intermediate and advance level courses.  This has allowed our employees to continue to grow as their knowledge levels have grown.

 

Where do we go from here?

 

This is an area that we have wrestled with over the last several months.  Some of the areas that we feel need attention in the HP 3000 training arena are as follows…

 

·         Certification

·         Provider Assessment

·         Standardization

·         Course Simplification

·         POSIX methodologies

·         Cross-Platform techniques