Form a Study Group |
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| Written by Graham Stoney | |||
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Forming a study group in your workplace is a great way to keep up with the latest improvements in technology, stay abreast of what's happening in the industry outside your organisation, learn something new, network with your peers and demonstrate leadership all at the same time. The idea of a study group is to meet regularly to study some topic of interest to everyone in the group. The group should have a fixed purpose, such as to study a recent or foundational text book relevant to your field. For example, if you're a Software Engineer, consider working your way through the SWEBOK, another influential text like Design Patterns, or the latest book on Extreme or Agile development methods. By the time you're finished, you're likely to have improved the standards of your whole organisation. It helps if the book can be digested in bite-sized chunks, especially considering that people may not be able to attend every meeting of the group. Break the material down so that it can be covered in a reasonable length of time, less than a year. If it's clear at the outset that it's going to take years to cover the material, then you're probably diving in too deep and people are likely to get dissuaded. Invite every Engineer within your organisation who could benefit from the information you want to study, and possibly even their technical managers. This is a great opportunity to network with Engineers on other projects who otherwise might tend to be rather insular. Elect yourself chair for the duration, or rotate the leadership of the group each week. For the purposes of the group, everyone should be considered as equals so that all can contribute and discuss their point of view equally. The company's normal organisational hierarchy should not apply within the group. Also notice whether the less vocal members of the group are contributing, and if not, make a special effort to ask their point of view as they may have valuable insights to share. Don't let any one person become to dominant. Have your group meet at lunch time once a week or fortnight. Ask the manager ultimately responsible for your discipline to include the cost of a book for each group member in the annual training budget; in many organisations this budget goes partly unspent anyway because Engineers are often too busy to go on all the training courses relevant to their job. Order pizza for each meeting and get the company to cover the cost of it too; a free lunch is likely to encourage fence-sitters to attend, and you can eat while debating the material. Meeting at lunch time means senior or busy Engineers can justify coming as they don't lose any real-work time. Encourage everyone in the group to read the chapter under consideration between group meetings, and come along ready to debate and discuss the content, say what they liked and didn't like, and suggest ways in which the company could incorporate the material into its development practices. Provide a periodic report to the manager who approved the books and pizza to give visibility on your group and let others know who may be interested in joining. Change in any organisation often starts with the people doing the actual work, and having a study-group of Engineers who all become familiar with some new advance at the same time can be a powerful catalyst for improving an organisations practices. This way you don't need to wait around for management to decide it's time to lift the company's game, and the whole group can advance towards becoming great Engineers all at the same time. Social Bookmark this page:         
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