It’s never a good time for training

As Jamin Arvig, President of WaterFilters.net learned the hard way, putting off training has a cost of its own: Lost employees. As Jarmin wrote in his A Worker Quit — Because I Didn’t Train Him To Succeed, if you don’t arm your employees to succeed they’ll eventually go elsewhere to look for career advancement. “[It] [...]

Training is number one

As I’ve pointed out more than once, training your employees is one of the best things you can do to benefit your business and your team. Even so, fears about what happens if you train your staff and they leave to find a better job are prevalent — but consider the alternative: What happens if [...]

Hiring for the culture

Hiring the right people means more than identifying good technical skills. A person’s resume can be outstanding, but it won’t matter one whit if personalities clash or new hires just don’t mesh with your culture. As Dan McCarthy writes in How to Hire for Cultural Fit, “It’s not what you know, but how you fit [...]

Common oversights in choosing methodology

Changing the way a business operates is a daunting task. It involves assessing and understanding the strengths and weaknesses of the current organization, identifying solutions to the weaknesses without compromising the strengths and, ultimately, changing the way people work. Above all, people tend to be resistant to change — and this is the most common issue that arises when adopting a new methodology.

Should Training be an Integral Part of a Project Budget to Increase Project Profitability?

Organizations that are “training challenged” must learn to do things differently. This includes delegating authority along with responsibility, being inspirational to employees, building trust and improving communication — all of which are direct benefits of a comprehensive process that incorporates training. Take a look at part two of Should Training be an Integral Part of [...]

Articulating the value of training

Training budgets are one of the first to go in a down economy. I first pointed this out in Finding Strategic Learning Funds, but there’s ample evidence to be gathered. When the money isn’t there, organizations start casting about for any program they deem expendable. But the unfortunate truth is that training is the best [...]

Workshop and training topic survey

Hyrax International LLC is running a short survey on training industry focus. Please take a few moments and participate — it’s only six questions long and will be tremendously useful.

Finding strategic learning funds

Training Industry Times recently published some rather disappointing statistics: Over 92% of surveyed business have experienced pressure to reduce their training budget in 2007. Worse, 56% reported that the pressure to reduce or altogether cut training costs were “significant.”
Is this attitude regarding education part-and-parcel of the declining attitude toward education in the United States? More [...]

The case for certification

I had to read the Agile Alliance’s position on certification a few times before I could decide whether I liked their position or not. Part of this is that the opinion is not that well written. Getting past that, I came away with these core statements:

Employers should not require certification.
Non-skill-based certification testing procedures have little [...]

Scrum workshop

Looking for a fast-paced, easy to digest introduction to Scrum? Check out Hyrax International LLC’s Scrum Workshop or contact me directly to discuss an on-site Rational Scrum workshop. Recently updated for 2010, this workshop will get your whole team up to speed and using Scrum in record time.