Jottings - Slice of life – 183 (Training to implementation - a humble success story)

Jottings - Slice of life – 183 (Training to implementation - a humble success story)

“Nothing could have deferred our vacation but the fact you were coming to teach. Thanks a ton, Bala. This project wouldn’t be ready to go live, if not for your matured guidance” - John held my hands and in a voice choking slightly with emotion spoke these words. And with these words, I ended one of the most fascinating training assignments in my career.

It was in May 2017, that I ran the first installment of Big data workshop for this audience, who were then completely new to the subject. They were obviously experienced, articulate and handpicked to work on this flagship multi million project. A lot was at stake. The project was funded by Top management as a pilot to evaluate the feasibility of migrating their enterprise storage to a platform more conducive to Data analytics and mining. With the consumer market becoming digitized, and user preferences better gauged through social media and blogs, this project attempted to create a forum which could tap into the immense potential offered by newer storage platforms which enable such transformation. My audience came from a purely relational database world, and to them, the technology I about to facilitate and educate them upon was mysterious and, quite frankly, did not seem a viable alternative. I still vividly remember the look of skepticism and look of disbelief on all those faces, on the first day of class in May. The project had just kicked off and the company I was representing had promised heavens. After all, a lengthy process of evaluation preceded the decision to choose this company and their offering, and one of the key promise made during negotiations and signing of contract was to train all their folks form scratch to quality required to execute the project without a glitch. The dice was thrown.

Overall, I delivered five rounds of Training workshop to different stakeholders in the team. Few, like John, attended all of them; others came in when needed. No conventions of regular classroom training were ever followed. No formal slides, no structured labs, no guided demos - nothing at all. We would assemble at 9 AM and kick off with a problem statement in the project to be solved, and once that was laid out comprehensively, I would gently nudge them with questions, elucidate concepts whenever required, slowly and steadily work our way into the problem. There were times when tempers have risen high, and fists pounded the table defending a point. Between team members, there was dissension and debate. But all of it dissolved in that one overarching aim all of us had in reaching a solution. Nothing personal at all. All energy, arguments and counterpoints were sacrificed at the altar of technology and its eventual adoption. Sometimes at the end of a training day, usually seven PM, we would be so exhausted to even say goodbye to each other. We would deploy the code, pack our stuff and walk out of the class like zombies – our head still reeling with the intensity of our discussions.

During each workshop, we covered a different angle of the solution. In the intervening time, we were in touch through emails. So, each of us knew exactly where we were when we reassembled for a class. It is with pride I observed the transformation in the team. Each time, the discussion grew more mature and technical; after the third workshop, all of us were on the same boat as far our understanding of technology went. There was neither tutor nor pupil thereafter. The last two engagements were purely run as tech seminars with me playing the role of arbiter, nothing more.

The project goes live on 31st December 2017. Everything is ready and the team is least worried on how it will fare. Most of the them have planned vacations. The deployment scripts are ready, and it doesn’t need any further intervention. It just need to be run them at an appointed hour. We are confident the pilot will be great success. Much depends on it for future adoption. For me personally, the last six months has been a unique experience in many ways, and also a categorical vindication of my thoughts on technical training. The boundaries between training and implementation( which often is quoted in a negative sense) was completely obliterated in this case. Over the years, I have strongly advocated teaching technology not as a course, but a means to an end. The audience must at the end of a training program gain confidence to apply what they have learnt to problems at hand. If that is not achieved then we aren’t delivering value. Running off the shelf courses helps business, but for the customer to value a class and return for more training, they must experience a “wow” moment, a moment when what is learnt sinks into the marrow of their bones, and they stand technically transformed.

As a technical evangelist, this series of assignments will remain one of the high points of my career. A sense of satisfaction envelopes me, and the exhausting effort that went into each step of this process will now remain joyful memory. I look forward to 2018.

God bless…

Yours in mortality,

Bala