Our best training yet

For the past few years we've been working on a training curriculum around Component Based Development and every time we finish updating it for an upcoming event we feel really good about it and think we finally got it. In reality, a training curriculum for a topic so complex as Component Development is probably never finished.

After BADCamp's training workshop last year we thought we were done updating the training material and we felt it was so good that it would carry us all the way to DrupalCon Seattle 2019. We could not have been more wrong. Soon after BADCamp we made the decision to move from KSS Node to Pattern Lab for handling our pattern's workflow and living styleguide. This meant our entire training material needed to be updated in time for DrupalCon. Needless to say we spent months ensuring the material was current, relevant and effective.

DrupalCon Seattle was a total success. Our training sold out in about two weeks and end up with almost 50 people in attendance which is probably a record for us. But with more students the chances of more issues or something going wrong increase. We make a big effort to ensure we provide an automated environment for student to use. This allows us provide all tools needed during training pre-configued and tested ensuring a more predictable and consistent behavior by students' systems. However, there are always cases in which a student decides not to use our environment and either due to technical skills or strict restrictions on their systems they need to use a workflow we have not tested.
This was certainly the case at DrupalCon and we had to find ways to help those students to be able to follow along during training.

One way to help people with their local setup is by conducting what we call "Office Hours". We reserve an hour or two weeks before the training where anyone who needs assistance with their local environment can join us online and we attempt to get them up and running. We helped several individuals this way. Although it is more work for us it allows us to address any issues off hours rather than spending valuable training time fixing computer problems.

The training was engaging and we received great feedback. Our curriculum, although not perfect, is relevant and well received. Having done this a few times at small and large events gives us confidence and makes it easier next time we do it.

Our team is dedicated and passionate about training and this would not be possible without them. Especial thanks go to Eric Huffman who has done most of the heavy lifting with the local environment automation. Kelly Dassing, who as a Director of Project Management provides a unique perspective to those in attendance who may not be developers. Tobias Williams who is an all around great FE develper and Engineer, and Mark Casias, who is able to answer the hard Back-end question that the rest of the team may not be as proficient as he is.

Should you have training needs please reach out and we would be happy to put together a curriculum that fits your specific needs or that of your team.

For a more in-depth look at how we prepare for a training workshop ready my blog post on Planning for an Effective Training Workshop.

Until next time ... Cheers!.