Organization Wide Training Effort to Introduce Python

Prior to the start of my role, the team I would work for had made the decision to migrate their automation library to Python. It was my knowledge of Python that aided in my being selected for this position. As part of the position, I was tasked with introducing not only the new automation library to those working within the organization, but introducing team members to Python as well. It had been decided that holding a series of training sessions where we can introduce specific topics surrounding the language and testing software to a large group of people at once and recording those sessions would be the best move. However, because this would require a large number of people (20+) taking 1-2 hours out of their day once a week, it was necessary that we seek and maintained the approval from management. Additionally, those attending needed to feel as though it was worth their time to attend.

A month was spent developing the materials for each session based on both requisite milestones for language proficiency and feedback from some early adopters of the new automation library regarding their own experiences attempting to learn it. Once that information was compiled and broken out into a series of topics that would correspond to each session, it was presented to management with each sessions learning objective clearly stated along side the results of a survey that demonstrated an organization wide interest and willingness to participate in those sessions. With this presentation, and an agreement to provide weekly progress updates to the management team once training sessions began, we were able to secure the support of management to move forward with the training effort.

With regards to running the sessions, the bulk of the material was split between my team mentor and myself. However, to fully demonstrate that there was a buy-in at the higher levels, I wanted certain sessions to be led by more senior members. To this end, I was able to get 1 well known member from each team to volunteer to lead a session. As a result, we were able to complete all of the training sessions which resulted in a dramatic increase in the adoption of the new automation library and the recorded sessions are still used today as training material for incoming new-hires.