IT Boot Camp
Imagine an IT service organisation with a permanent feeling that it suffers from a lack of documentation. Whenever a problem arises, everybody does feel themselves at a loss, not having the proper tools or documents at hand that would be required to meet their high, self-imposed standards. Each attempt to solve the documentation problem ended in disastrous piles of outdated documents and overwhelming, soon yellowed wallpaper charts.
My solution, in this case, has been the establishment of a boot camp style introductory period for freshman IT recruits, that helped solve many problems, primarily the lack-of-documentation problem.
The real reason hidden behind this claim was nothing else than an (understandably) unvoiced feeling of incapability and orientation that had only been projected to a lack of documentation. Even given the time, every attempt to solve the documentation problem proved too clumsy to be of any help, no matter how clever it had been organised.
The boot camp consisted of three months of intensive on-the-job training for freshmen. Both in theory and practical assistance. And most importantly, the training was conducted by the IT staff itself. Thus, for a couple of reasons, it had an enormous impact on the proficiency of people. And exactly this increase in proficiency made the feeling for lack of documentation disappear.
The boot camp did not only get the newbies to a productive level with tremendous speed, it also created an ideal platform of mutual responsibility. By preparing and teaching — among other things — also those topics their day-to-day routine gave them little chance to keep their skills up to date with, the permanents could keep up and enhance their own hands-on proficiency. In an environment, where their engagement was more than cumbersome learning for “just in case”.
On the other hand the new personnel was quickly incorporated into the team and could act responsibly, alleviating the workload on the permanents and encouraging mutual trust.
Thus, the boot camp, overcoming the initial resistance of its military connotation, helped create an atmosphere of mutual responsibility which gave room to a sustainable solution: Giving staff enduring motivation fight their worst enemy: getting themselves to retain the many details present in their minds which were necessary to keep up good performance. The motivation has proven to be people responsibility. Not additional documentation, which would only stack another permanent burden onto their pile to be kept organised.
