Kurt,

My team at work subscribed to Lynda.com. It has been invaluable for getting
up to speed on new technologies quickly and on-demand.  We liked it so much,
we suggested to HR that they acquire access for the entire company, which
they eventually followed through on.  Everyone at MPOW who has taken one of
their trainings has had great reviews, I highly recommend checking them out
to see if their offerings might meet your needs.


Marijane White
Media Librarian
Gracenote, Inc.

On Tue, Jul 19, 2011 at 7:55 AM, Nordstrom, Kurt <[log in to unmask]>wrote:

> Hey folks, had a topic come up here that seemed relevant to the tenor of
> this group. Would be interested in hearing if anybody else has approached
> the same situation, and how they went about it.
>
> Technology, especially in regards to software development, is a pretty
> constantly moving target, and there are always new methodologies, tools,
> practices and models that need to be evaluated and possibly adopted. Or, put
> another way, developers need to be learning constantly if they're going to
> stay relevant.
>
> Unfortunately, in today's economic climate, the prospect of being able to
> ship your developer team across the country to attend week-long seminars or
> conferences or what-have-you is not quite as realistic as it once might have
> been, especially in the academic and library world.
>
> The obvious solution would seem to be implementing some sort of in-house
> skills training program to keep developers sharp. Possibly something like a
> mutual book study with followup reports or presentations, or maybe bringing
> in an outside presenter. I wonder if any of the groups here have implemented
> anything along these lines, and how have they gone about it?
>
> Things that we'd be interesting in knowing, if you've done any sort of
> in-house training program would be:
>
> - Topics: What sort of things did you cover? New languages? New
> technologies? Programming practices?
> - Method: What did you use? Books? On-line courses? Videos? Hired speakers?
> - Budget: Did you have one? What were the costs involved?
> - Time: How much time did you allocate to training? Were you able to
> provide study time for those involved in the training?
> - Evaluation methods: How did you evaluate the effectiveness of the
> training? Did those involved give reports? Did you do any sort of coding
> reviews?
> - Results: Was it worth it?  Would you do it again?
>
> We'd love to hear from any and all of those out there who have implemented
> (or attempted to implement) something along these lines.
>
> Thanks!
>
>
> -Kurt
>