We are not all equally motivated. Some people have more self-drive than other people. This is why we find that some people always end up at the top even when the odds are against them. An employee, with this realization, through the Human Resource department, should be able to design efficient career development systems. For this system to work, the employer must understand the nature of the business environment in which they are operating.

Why Train Employees?

The purpose of training employees is to enable them to grow with time and increase their efficiency. The business world is quite dynamic, nothing stays the same for long. Training one’s employees allows them to keep abreast with the ever changing technological advancements and many other factors that are relevant to his/her line of work. Employees cannot be expected to solve all their employer’s expectations with static skills and techniques. Even the most updated technology becomes obsolete at some point.
People are the biggest assets in organizations. For an establishment to flourish, it is important that the employer understands certain key things that help spur their development.

In a report from the Harvard Business Review, “The Impact of Employee Engagement of Performance,” the most impactful employee drivers are:

Today we live in the age of technology. It seems like everyone owns at least one computer, but few actually know how they work. We hear about Java tutorials and C# programming, but why are these things important?

There has been an increasing demand for those who are proficient in web development. It is a job field that has grown substantially in the past decade, and it is still continuing to flourish with no signs of stopping. Learning a web language is not only a useful skill, but a necessary one. So why, out of all of the available web languages, is Java the most valuable?

·         First off, it is a simple language that is easily learned and well known.

·         Java has been around for awhile now, and has earned its place as one of the pillars of modern day computer architecture. Information on Java is abundant, and ranges from online tutorials to books, such as "Java for Dummies."

We’re often asked by companies about how they can get the most value from Agile/Scrum practices. More specifically, they want to know if they are being as effective as best they possibly can be by using the Scrum framework for their explicit needs.

The other objective for individuals is determining if it necessary to be certified in order to be effective in the Agile Scrum world?   In short, a good Scrum Master must understand four things: the business they work in, the technology they work with, the Agile and Scrum principles, and, most importantly, people!  Based on these facts, Scrum Master Certification is not enough – real life experience and a bit of soft skills should be part and parcel of their training. For organizations, the main goal is to understand industry best practices when adopting and applying agile principles, to build strong teams, understand and distill business needs into software requirements.

In terms of getting a good grip on training for Agile/Scrum, one can opt to pursue a certification in Scrum (CSM) Certified Scrum Master for personal reasons or for a job requirement. Or, one can simply opt to learn the benefits and pitfalls of the methodology and decide the best approach for them.

There are different ways to get started with Agile training. Below are two of the most common paths to Agile our students take.

One of the biggest challenges faced by senior IT professionals in organizations is the choice of the right software vendor. In the highly competitive enterprise software industry, there are lot of vendors who claim to offer the best software for the problem and it can be really daunting to narrow down the best choice. Additionally, enterprise software costs can often run into millions of dollars thereby leaving very little margin of error. The real cost of choosing a wrong software can often result into losses much more than the cost of the software itself as highlighted by software disasters experienced by leading companies like HP, Nike etc. In such a scenario, senior IT professionals despite years of expertise can find it very difficult to choose the right business software vendor for their organization.

Here are some of the proven ways of short-listing and selecting the right business software vendor for your organization,

·         Understand and Define The Exact Need First: Before embarking on a journey to select the software vendor, it is critical to understand and define the exact problem you want the software to solve. The paramount question to be asked is what business objective does the software need to solve. Is the software required to “reduce costs” or is it to “improve productivity”? Extracting and defining this fundamental question is the bare minimum but necessary step to go searching for the right vendor. It will then form the basis of comparing multiple vendors on this very need that your organization has and will help drive the selection process going forward. The detailed approach involves creating a set of parameters that the software needs to meet in order to be considered. In fact, consider categorizing these parameters further in “must-haves”, “good to have” etc. which will help you assign relevant weights to these parameter and how the software’s fare on each of these parameters

·         Building The List of Vendors Who Meet The Need: Once you have defined your need and distilled that need into various parameters, it’s time to built the list of vendors who you think will meet the need. This is akin to a lead generation model wherein you want to identify a large enough pool and then filters your list down to the best ones. There are multiple ways of building a list of vendors and more often than not, you must use a combination of these methods to build a good enough list.

o   Use Industry Reports: We discussed the IT intelligence offered by leading industry firms Gartner and Forrester in How To Keep On Top Of Latest Trends In Information Technology. These firms based on their access to leading software vendors and CIO network publish vendor comparison research reports across specific verticals as well as specific technologies. Gartner’s Magic Quadrant and Forrester’s Wave are a very good starting point to get an insight into the best software vendors. For example, if you were looking for a CRM solution, you could look for Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for CRM and look at the vendors that make the list. These reports can be pricey but well worth the money if you are going to invest hundreds of thousands in the software. Having said that, you don’t have to trust these report blindly because how these firms define the best software may not match how you define the best software for your organization

o   Competitive Intelligence: If you are a smart professional, you are already keeping tabs of your competition. Chances are that if you are a big organization, you might see a Press Release either from your competitor or their vendor announcing the implementation of new software. Extrapolate that across 5-10 key competitors of yours and you might discover the vendors that your competitors are choosing. This gives you a good indicator that the vendors used by your competitors must be offering something right.