**WARNING - VERBOSITY BIT IS SET. DELETE IF YOU ARE TIME
CHALLENGED**
Priscilla makes some excellent points below. I agree with her
totally and completely. I would like to add to her points and
open up a new area for discussion. It revolves around the
issue of getting the most bang for your buck in training.
One thing that has really surprised me about monitoring this
list for the past two years is how little preparation most
people make in choosing their training, and training
providers. Many of you do not have a choice. If you get
training at all, it is supplied by the sole contractor/company
that your company selects, and that is that. Okay, something
is better than nothing at all.
OTOH, there may be more to it than that. Did you have to sign
some form of indentured servitude (employment agreement or
contract) to attend such training? If so, it is hardly free.
There are strings attached, and they are attached to you. You
should have a say in who provides your training and the quality
of that training. Besides, if an employer keeps sending you to
a marginal/substandard training provider, how long do you feel
you are going to stay with that employer? The feedback loop is
vitally important. Whoever was sent to the class that was
originally mentioned, you need to inform your supervisor of the
situation and seek remedies. I agree with Priscilla, asking
for a refund is not out of the question. Still, all of this
discussion up to this point is all **reactive** Let's get into
the realm of proactiveness...
First things first. Are you taking the right type of
training? If your budget is limited, you may need to pick and
choose fewer classes from a long list to create a short list of
essential classes. Did you work with your training advisor to
get the right classes for you? A good training company should
meet your needs, not just sell you to a seat. They should
listen to what your needs are, and fulfill them. You may not
need certification based training. You may only need specialty
training, such as CVOICE, CIPT, etc. Buying something you
don't need in today's austere environment is not good.
Assuming you have identified the classes you need, are you
taking them in the proper order? Yes, it is possible to take
BSCN before ICND however, I would not recommend it. Depending
upon your experience level, you will either be bored to tears
in ICND, or you will be in way over your head in BSCN. Cisco
publishes a recommended prerequisites list for most Cisco
classes. They are there for a reason - food for thought...
Once you have identified the classes you need and found the
right order of classes, are the locations convenient to you?
Sometimes, this is not necessarily what you might think it
means. Convenient may be down the street, but I consider that
to be a slightly sub-optimal situation when you are getting
calls/pages every 30 minutes and getting pulled out from class
constantly. It's tougher to do when you are in the next
state. OTOH, you may have to fight for travel funds, so there
is a balance to be achieved. A little hint to help all of you
who are attending training and don’t want to get pulled out of
classes – pagers don’t work in training facilities. The walls
are normally made of kryptonite, and the only radiation that
will penetrate is cosmic radiation:-) Seriously, wait until
the breaks, or lunch time to answer the pages. If you are that
critical to your network’s daily function, and that
irreplaceable, you will get burnt out over the long haul.
Once you have figured out the classes, order, and location(s),
what about your instructor? This one will probably raise a big
stink at the training partners, but it is definitely a question
I would ask. Would you go pay $2,000 to a doctor and not even
know their name before you went under the knife? Call me
clueless, but my money is on doing a little homework in this
area. How long has your instructor been teaching? What
courses does he/she teach? What field experience do they
have? Here's a good one - what is their instructor evaluation
rating?
Every Cisco instructor is evaluated by every one of his/her
students after every class that is taught. All evaluations are
ultimately sent to San Jose for compilation in a database. New
instructors are allowed to carry a slightly lower rating during
their first six months. After that, there is a minimum
standard that all instructors must meet, or they are put on
probation (and could lose their certification if they don't
improve). Are you content to get an average instructor, or do
you want the best bang for your buck? I don't think it would
be going out a limb to say that if Priscilla was an active
Cisco instructor she would probably carry a 4.7 or better out
of a 5.0 scale. 4.4 to 4.5 is considered respectable for
somebody who has been teaching a while.
Another issue is regarding professional standing, and coequals
in the field. As an example, many of you have commented over
the last several years about wanting to take the ECP1 class by
Bruce Caslow. The overwhelming majority of you hold it in high
regard (and rightfully so); it produces results. The results
are a measurable improvement in the CCIE lab test taking
methodologies and "issue spotting". Many of you will only take
this course if Bruce is teaching it. What you need to
understand is that the same effort that Bruce put into
designing the course, he put as much, if not greater effort,
into building co-instructors for the course. The last one that
I saw/knew was Val Pavlichenko. You should feel honored to get
Val in that class. He is absolutely top notch and adds superb
real world scenarios to an excellent course. It is my belief
that he was the only one who could successfully port the Vlab
technology over to Stratacom boxes, which is no small feat.
Don't believe for a second you are getting 2nd best; far, far
from it. My point is that asking for an instructor by name is
not always the best path to a goal. Be prepared for choices.
You are in the driver's seat.
In the same vein about instructors, what level of dedication
does your instructor have? Is that person there early in the
morning before class starts to answer your questions? Are they
there after class if you need them? Will they be there if you
need/want to stay after class and play with the toys? It's
your money, you are in the driver's seat.
Regarding your instructor, how receptive are they to answering
your questions? Are they constantly deflecting questions, or
do they get you an answer? Not every instructor can know
everything about everything. Some students monopolize the
class with off topic questions, such as constantly wanting to
know about ATM VCs and BGP confederations in an ICND class.
Those are questions that reasonably should be deflected to
after class. OTOH, if a student is in ICND, and does not
understand the difference between split horizon and route
poisoning, the instructor should answer the question.
If a student really wants/needs to know an answer, the
instructor should get it. It may be the next morning, or the
following day, but they should answer your questions. If your
instructor doesn't write your questions down on the white
board, do it yourself on your own paper. When a day or two goes
by and you haven't heard an answer, ping the instructor again.
If they still don't get you an answer, they get what they
deserve on Friday at the end of class when the evaluations are
made. It's your money, you are in the driver's seat.
In a slightly different, but more generic note; what about the
materials for the class? Does this instructor/training
organization supplement Cisco's training materials with
additional labs and/or training materials. As some of you have
discovered, some of the Cisco manuals are less than totally
perfect. They have just a few tiny mistakes in them :-) Keep
this matter in perspective. You can have an accurate manual,
or a timely manual, but you cannot get both. Which would you
prefer? For those that say accurate, I need only point you as
far as the old CLSC course which had training materials that
talked about "future capabilities in the Cisco switching
products" that happened a year ago. My vote is on timeliness,
with a supplement from the instructor in the form or errata
information, or book corrections. The intent would be to take
an excellent manual and make it into a great manual or desktop
reference material. Does your training organization do this for
you?
You will likely get rebuffed by some training organizations
when you attempt to make informed inquiries about your
training. Do not be deterred. It is **YOUR** money. Just
because your employer may be footing the bill does not make it
any less of your money. That is part of your total
compensation package. You need to be in the driver's seat. If
a training partner is not willing to discuss these sorts of
issues, maybe another one will. You might end up being a high
maintenance customer/account for them, but probably a loyal
customer, and one worth preserving. Again, keep this all in
perspective. If you went to a doctor and got an outpatient
surgery for a relatively benign ailment, it might set you (or
your insurance company) back $2,500. How is taking a $2,000+
class any different in terms of the research you would do on
the person who will perform the services?
---RANT OVER---
v/r,
Paul Werner
> I say she should go for it. Most training partners are very
concerned
> with
> customer satisfaction and try their best to offer high-
quality classes.
> My
> guess is that her instructor was new. That happens. (It can
be extremely
>
> difficult to teach a new class, but that's not her problem &;-
) If they
> won't give her a refund, they might at least let her attend
again for
> free.
> I realize it can be hard to get away again and possibly spend
more
> travel
> money, but it's better than nothing.
>
> Priscilla
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