Mindless Mind©

Today, I will try to answer a question, “Why an individual, working directly with end client, cannot survive long in training ?”

Well, this question is based on my perspective - “An indiviual cannot go long”.

Or, as we call in Hindi, “Akela Chana Bhaand Naheen Phod Sakta (अकेला चना भाड़ नहीं फोड़ सकता)”

Given below are my justifications, based on my experiences.

Let’s try to look at the activities in a smart trainer’s life:

• Know / Learn, in depth, about the subject to provide training on.
• Have / Get practical knowledge to be able to provide effective training. Otherwise, it remains a pure theoretical “teaching” rather than practical “training”
• Prepare effective case-studies, that more real-world than theoretical. The training should comprise of some “best practices”.
• Be prepared to answer queries from the “related areas” rather than only “the subject / topics”
• At times, sit with the team undergoing training to analyze their project and provide best approach for implementing solution to business problem.
  Trainer should understand the business problem as opposed to only technical problem since unless a technology solves the business / human problem, the technology or solution is of no use!
• Ensure that he is on the cutting edge of the technology, lest he becomes obsolete.
• Prepare the literate to be handed over to the audience.

However, if the trainer is an individual he will need to, additionally, work on the following:

• Negotiate price.
• Check his availability and giving immediate commitment, which he / she may not want to do.
• At times, run around places at the client premises to get his payments. The payment cycle can be from around 10 days to 60 days.
  Which means that the trainer cannot work with the companies where the payment cycle is long lest he has enough buffer with himself.
• Look at taxes, especially TDS
• Ensure that the tax is not deducted for reimbursements. Ensure that Debit Note is taken care of appropriately.
• Participate in regular “vendor meets” organized by the clients.
• Prepare the literate to be handed over to the audience. Here, the physical delivery - may be a book or a CD/DVD etc.

Now, my simple question - “How much of this can an individual do effectively ?”

Once he starts running around to collect the payments, his precious training time is gone. Also, once he receives the payment after running around, he may be simply too tired physically to check up with the latest in the world.

At least two people are required. One to focus on the first set of activities, and the other for the latter set.

That’s how we - Yashwanth C and Gaurav Vaish - started Edujini.
I’ll find time to write something on the “history of Edujini” later on…

As I mentioned in one of my earlier postings that I had to do study of some internal stuff in Team Foundation Server - mainly related to Custom Check-in Policies, Custom Work Item UI Controls, Custom Alerts and Notifications (Events) etc.

I reached the client’s office (office gate to be precise) at around 8:25am. The company premises has about a dozen entrances because of the sheer size of the campus.

After going around a couple of gates, found the correct gate. As what the professionalism says, the security was informed about our (my colleague and mine, who else) arrival. So, no problems in getting the visitor pass.

(more…)

When I started my day yesterday, I thought I would be going off to a great day ahead for my training.

The Monday evening, I was severly troubled because of the red-burning-eyes and severe headache caused due to inefficient and insufficient lighting in the training room. As such, I did nothing in the evening but took dinner and went off to a long sleep.

Reaching the venue, I noticed that not all machines were properly configured, yet. We spent another 1hr for the setup - just to ensure that we get going as quickly as possible and do not waste more time.

And by the end of the day, I figured out that we are running late by around 4hrs or so. Really, couldn’t see any hope to recover that time anywhere.

So, here’s a list of things that you must take care of before / during the training:

• There should be appropriate and sufficient ligthing
• There should be lights focussed at your laptop screen, to say the minimum, lest your eyes get strained
• The screen should be sufficiently large
• The maximum distance between the screen and the participant should be such that he is able to view any content / text / code written at font-size of 14-16.

If not, be prepare to strain yourself and get doomed!