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Experiential Learning – Why, How and The Benefits
Experiential Learning – Why, How and The Benefits

June 22, 2022

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Learning or upskilling new technologies is paramount to surviving in the IT industry. Every organization invest heavily in upskilling their employees. Why are organizations spending so much money on upskilling? Is it to make the employees happy? No, it is because the organization needs to be relevant to the market change and future technology. The training requirements for the IT Services organizations are often driven by the client’s needs or the project they are bidding on. What the Project Manager or Program Manager expects after the training? They expect their employees to start working on the new technology as soon as possible! Is it a fair ask? Of course, it is.

The Problem Statement: From my 27+ years of IT Industry experience, out of which 8+ years as L&D Lead, I found over 90% of cases, the formal or traditional training does not yield the desired outcome. I know; I have made a very bold statement. What do I mean by not yielding the desired outcome? I mean that even after the team gets the training, it takes significant time (from 7 days to a month) before they can effectively apply their learning in the project. The organization is spending for the training and then bearing the payroll cost of those employees during this period when they are working as a shadow resource. This is the least any Project Lead, who is responsible for the P&L of the project wants, but often has to accept. Why? Because – they are told, “This is the reality”. Traditionally software training is run where the trainer teaches the technology, uses some PPT and demonstrates the learning through some exercise or dummy projects. But, will the participants learn how to make the application user-friendly, fast-responsive, reliable, and flexible? Most likely not!

Solution: Here, Experiential Learning comes into the picture. We know about Experiential Learning, but are you serious that it can be implemented in software training? Most of the time, the trainer does not have project experience. If the trainer has the project experience and the organization wants, they can share an old project relevant to the trainees and ask the trainer to teach them through that project development. That will be real Experiential Learning, as the trainees will experience the project delivery using the same technology they are learning. The result will be amazing! The trainees can be deployed into the project immediately after their training, saving the payroll cost during the shadow period, as we have mentioned earlier.

Today, unfortunately, the training is considered an Expense by many organizations. While training is an investment. So, we need to be careful while making investments and ensure that we do not put our money into the wrong investment!


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Amit Ganguly
Founder and Managing Director

Our founder has worked as all four stakeholders mentioned earlier. He has 7+ years of experience leading project teams. 8.5 years of experience of leading L&D function. 7.5 years as Technical Trainer 2+ years as Training Vendor. With his 27+ years of experience as all four stakeholder, he understands the requirements from all four sides.

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