As I leave Milwaukee and head towards Redmond on a full flight with five of my Centare colleagues , I cannot help but think about the week ahead at the Microsoft Partner ALM Summit. The question that keeps entering my mind is, how will this week of insight, guidance and relationships add value to our team, company and customers? All of these groups are important to consider and should benefit from this trip, but how? Pondering these questions, I’ve decided to offer some ideas for how these groups will benefit. While these ideas will be specifically considering the ALM Summit, they should apply to any educational event or conference.
Knowledge Transfer
At any educational event knowledge is gained, some more than others, but non-the-less education occurs. Two things can happen with this new knowledge. It can be horded and guarded like trade secrets, or it can be shared with others. I strongly believe in community, and members of the tech community should frequently collaborate and share work experiences to strengthen the group. At Centare, we make a conscience effort to gather our team regularly for educational and social events. We will strengthen our internal community by sharing the knowledge and best practices learned with our team through these gatherings.
Boost Effectiveness
Not only will we pass along new insights, but the team will collaborate and bounce ideas which will naturally improve retention and practicality. Our team is a great group of leaders who are passionate about delivering business value through software development. Our team also constantly seeks ways to sharpen the saw and be better at what we do. New information will be considered by our team and will eventually lead to experimenting, dissecting and developing personal conclusions. Ultimately, the new information is a catalyst for thought, leading to action and resulting in increased efficiency and effectiveness.
Spread the Word
Thus far, I’ve been completely focused on how this benefits our internal team and company but have not talked about our customers. This would all be a waste if our customers didn’t gain value. Our customers will certainly benefit from our team being more knowledgeable about software development practices and specific technologies. Our customers will also benefit from our team’s increased effectiveness. But how do we make it practical for our customers as quickly as possible? I believe our customers would benefit from sessions similar to our internal sessions. The word should be spread and we should equip our customers with insight and practices to be most effective. We regularly hold Lunch & Learn events for our customers and the community to where our leaders present emerging technologies and best practices. This would be a potential forum for passing along this information. However, we could also engage organizations through targeted, intimate sessions. These Customer Briefings would provide insight and guidance and create an environment that encourages good dialog.
Get Involved
You might be asking, how do I get involved? If you are a part of an organization in Milwaukee, Chicago or Madison area and would like to hear about the practices and knowledge that we pick up this week at the Microsoft Partner ALM Summit and in the future, please contact me and let us know to include you on our Lunch & Learn invites. If you are interested in a private Customer Briefing, shoot me an email with your contact info, a little information about your organization and what would be most valuable for your Customer Briefing. Unfortunately, because of the fixed size of our team, Customer Briefing availability will be limited and available on a first-come first-serve basis, so get in quickly.