Momentum Life has launched an education project that encompasses its entire ICT staff complement across eight company ICT divisions.
"This project is providing an education basis for our drive to a second version of our services-based architecture where we make product-based services available to the company`s growing number of channel-based systems - whether the systems are built in RPG, Java, or Microsoft-based technologies," says Chris Kruger, chief technology officer (CTO) of Momentum.
Momentum has contracted software development specialist, GuruHut, to drive the consultation, training and administration process of the entire education project over a two-year period.
"Momentum has a pretty good alignment between ICT and business with each profit centre having its own ICT development division operating within a broad enterprise ICT architecture. This way of building systems achieves great focus on ICT delivery, but also creates a number of tough challenges for building integrated systems. These challenges are at both business and ICT levels.
"We have been applying the principles of encapsulation for a number of years now, but have always had a rather unsupportive philosophy about ICT education," says Kruger.
GuruHut has compiled a training needs analysis for each ICT person in the business to determine what training is appropriate.
"There are a number of GuruHut`s courses that fitted in very well with the project, but we have designed a number of tailor-made courses to address Momentum`s needs in the RPG programming arena," says Nigel Bakker, marketing director at GuruHut.
One such course, specifically designed for RPG programmers, is based around teaching fundamental concepts of object-oriented thinking.
"The course teaches RPG programmers how to apply some of the core concepts of object-oriented programming (OOP) within PRG to create channel-oriented services that can be integrated and re-used with other software languages within and outside the group," says Bakker.
The training is structured as a series of three-month cycles, staggered over 18 to 24 months to ensure a smooth transition.
"We have begun our second three-month cycle of training, and have set up an administration Web site that allows Momentum`s employees to schedule their own training courses conveniently and in line with their training road-maps. This includes options to book, reschedule or cancel reservations on scheduled courses. The whole system is geared to allow client-driven, course scheduling on demand," says Bakker.
To ensure that classroom-based learning is effectively applied, GuruHut also provides consulting services to Momentum in some cases, including technical leadership, mentoring and skills transfer on site.
Adds Kruger: "One of the gaps that we identified in ICT is the need for a more proactive approach to ICT training. This necessitated taking a strategic view of ICT training, not just in advanced technologies, but also in the enterprise architecture environment."
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