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The right technical training partner can be a serious boon to your business. You know you need technology, and you know you need your talent to be able to work with and innovate around that technology in order to push your business forward. The training partner you choose to help make that happen should be able to demystify technology, understand it’s role in your organization, recommend solutions, and they shouldn’t quibble at providing you with personalized service that will meets your company’s technical talent’s needs.
That partner is not unlike the perfect hotel concierge. Think about it. The concierge can answer all of your questions about all the points of interest in an unfamiliar place. He or she listens to you and makes recommendations to provide exactly what you need. It’s too bad concierges don’t teach Python.
Here are few things your technical training provider has in common with a posh hotel concierge:
They Make Reservations
As a software development team, you may only have a short window in which to do training. The right technical training partner understands that and will gladly personalize training delivery dates to your schedule. It’s not unlike a vacation. You might have three different options for a weekend getaway, but nothing is pre-scheduled or set in stone until it works with your production schedule and team members’ availability.
Furthermore, that partner understands the people attending – and the instructors teaching – the class have to negotiate their calendars as well. Different instructors, for instance, are often more comfortable with certain technologies. It should never be one person providing training for an array of technologies. DevelopIntelligence instructors typically have a decade or more of experience with a specific technology.
A hotel concierge who’s a fixture in the grand lobby and has a reputation for being the best will take the time to get to know you. In a scoping call the instructor – not the concierge – asks clarifying technical questions: What versions are you using? How have you implemented that technology? Are you new to it? Have you been using it for awhile? Have you upgraded recently? How did the upgrade go?
A concierge will ask you about your palette and eating preferences before providing dinner recommendations. A technical training instructor asks questions to understand where an organization’s technical talent is currently, and where they should be by the end of the learning experience. Your objectives are the sole focus.
They Arrange for Additional (L&D) Services
A training provider’s services should be more expansive than just delivering a single, transactional class. The learning experience should not be short lived; it should be a holistic experience. When the hotel concierge sends you off to dinner at a restaurant, when you come back he or she will ask, “what did you think? How did it go? What did you like?” This feedback informs future suggestions.
The learning and development environment is similar. A training partner should want to know what proficiencies and abilities learners have so they can front load information before the class begins. Then during class the instructor will conduct constant check-ins and labs to make sure classroom training is applicable to their roles, immediately and in the future.
They Recommend Best Practices (and Learning Paths)
A concierge knows what’s out there and will recommend the best options to suit your tastes and needs. A technical training vendor should do the same. Client objectives shape the learning path a developer or engineer takes.
Before suggesting training a great vendor should ask: What do you want to get out of this? Is this transformational? Is this to solve an immediate problem? Does your organization lack institutional knowledge? Are there specific skill gaps? Do you need to train an entire department on a new emerging technology? The answers dictate the learning path, and all are different.
They Don’t Have Preferences
A concierge probably won’t express personal preferences; it’s about determining what you want and need. Training providers should be technology agnostic. Cloud training, for instance, shouldn’t depend on what cloud solution you have. DevelopIntelligence understands that larger companies often have multiple, different cloud solutions running. Whether its Amazon Web Services, Azure, Microsoft’s cloud product, or GCP, Google’s Cloud Platform, we can go in and train AWS and Azure simultaneously because the people in the class likely will use both solutions in their role.
They Offer Multiple Options (Learning Modalities)
A training partner should offer different modes of learning: classroom, an online library, virtual classrooms, self-paced learning. Classroom training isn’t the be all end all. Employees need more than that. DevelopIntelligence partners with Pluralsight to ensure that employees have holistic learning opportunities. Expert-led training in a classroom setting augments current proficiencies and skills just as self-paced, individual research provides added knowledge.
They Don’t Sweat Difficult Travel Arrangements
The hotel concierge isn’t going to nit pick and say, “Oh, you’ve already asked two questions today. You can’t ask anything else.” It’s the same with training vendors. Some will add extra fees for expenses, travel, food and lodging. At DevelopIntelligence, pricing is all-inclusive, and we handle getting the instructor to your location, wherever that might be. There is limitless support, and each client has a dedicated customer success manager to ensure their learning experience meets expectations and focused requirements
So, while technical training isn’t actually like a posh hotel concierge, it should be. Make sure your technical training vendor provides you with customized service so that your technical learning experience will be valuable both today and tomorrow.
