Applied Learning with Wolverhampton City Council
The Background
To comply with the directives of e-Government, a substantial part of all UK's county council services were to have been provided on-line by certain key dates. Wolverhampton City services was staffed by 36 developers, mainly having experience of mainframe computing.
The Project
In order to meet the Government's directive, it was essential to cross-train the developer team into the brave new world of programming relational databases and using object-orientated techniques to build Web sites! Luckily, the team comprised very experienced developers, with the ability to solve problems and write good, solid code. Nevertheless, this was going to represent a big change and something which was not going to happen by attending a couple of regular training courses.
Just to make the project a little more challenging, the first Web site had to be ready within just a few months, the others following rapidly thereafter.
The Six-Step Process in Action
After some initial consultation, Storm Software consultants developed a working architecture that was to serve two purposes. Firstly, it was the proof of concept for Wolves' initial Web site - due for completion just weeks after the training had been completed; secondly, it would become the architecture of the training and homework.
Because there was so much for individuals to learn, the consultants devised a programme of classroom training followed by one-week of actual project development work.
The courses, which were especially written for Wolves, progressed logically through each tier of the architecture of a Web application, so that by the end of each session, attendees had learnt enough to build another useful part of their first application. By the end of the programme, each team had created their own proof of concept Web application, and together, they formed significant part of the all-important first Web site.
One stipulation was made by the department manager. That everyone be invited to an introductory 'jargon-busting' and 'demystifying' session. This was an excellent idea, and helped communicate the plan and set the scene for the entire programme.
Conclusion
The programme was extremely successful, with the first Web site being launched ahead of schedule, a motivated and re-skilled team and their continued delivery on the government's eGIF directives.
“Filled in many gaps in my knowledge and given me a greater understanding
about how it all works behind the scenes”
“Very well explained, got a much better understanding of it than I expected”
“The depth of coverage has been first class”
“I have found that I have MUCH improved confidence after each of these courses which is extremely valuable to me”