Training on a shoestring budget

Your training budget probably took a hit in the IT spending squeeze, but you're still charged with providing a solid IT infrastructure to ensure your company stays competitive. To do this, your staff needs to learn how to innovate with existing or new technologies.

Standardize your IT infrastructure and training.

When SBC and BellSouth  joined forces to form Atlanta-based Cingular in 2000, the company began standardizing on technologies, such as databases, which has helped refine its training needs. The company also has defined courses, such as project management, that are applicable to staff across all business units. Instead of each unit developing its own project management courses, for example, training needs are pulled together and courses are developed so that all departments can share the results.

Look for in-house superstars.

Who else are experts at your processes, infrastructures and developments other than your in-house staff? At lighting manufacturer Osram Sylvania of Danvers, Mass., in-house instructors present much of its training. IT staffers are responsible for training power users on SAP. The users in turn train their respective teams. Osram's human resources executives also provide internal training to IT folks on professional development and leadership management.

"The use of internal instructors/subject matter experts makes sense because who knows how we use SAP better than our employees?" says Ellen Famigliette, IT training manager at Osram. "Most enterprise application deployments are customized and therefore need customized training that is only applicable to that company. In addition, our HR trainers understand the hierarchy of employees at Osram."

Ask your big brother for help.

Ever thought about how you could roll out new services in your organization without spending a dime buying all the necessary equipment and technologies? IT staffers at the Career Center of the University of California at Los Angeles can learn about and work with advanced technologies such as storage-area networks, Gigabit Ethernet  and Active Directory, without the center paying to install such applications or buying specific courseware.

Despite budgetary constraints in the state of California, Abel Stephen, the center's IT manager, successfully negotiated for the larger Office of Technology Center (OTC), which offers basic networking services to UCLA's student affairs division, to provide the career center with the advanced technologies listed above. This initiative, dubbed Leveraged Outsourcing of Infrastructure Support (LOIS), helps the OTC argue for the maintenance of its budget level by demonstrating that it has taken on wider responsibilities.

The career center IT staffers benefit because they can work with and learn from their OTC colleagues about the use of those hot technologies. "My staff are rewarded by allowing them to play a prominent role in project-managing each implementation phase [of LOIS]," Stephen says. "Before, my staff was viewed as 'tech support.' Now they will have the opportunity to transition to project managers."