Teaching Programming Online

Business Context
Dunnhumby is a known expert in providing analytical intelligence to the biggest retailers in the word. The company works on a specialized program application called SAAS which requires all new hires and engineers from top colleges to get through this boot-camp on how to write programs in this application.

Challenge
The company placed very high premium on the quality of training being delivered to their human talent. To fulfill this commitment they engaged their most valuable experts to deliver this 10-day training program.
As the company was expanding its talent acquisition, the need for such training programs for their new hires increased significantly.
As a result, the company faced the following challenges:
1. The experts/most capable assets of the company were engaged in delivering the training for a very long time and their absence had an impact on the overall performance on the floor and the boot camp was turning out to be too long time for the new hires to get accustomed to.
2. The company definitely wanted to review the way they were upscaling their new hires, but was not sure if “Digital Learning” would prove to be effective in delivering these highly technical conceptual subjects like programming.

Our Approach
We understood the nature of the subject and the complexity of dynamics that happens inside the classroom through which programming currently was being taught.
We knew that this project required more than just downloading or narrating the concepts. It required upscaling the new hires step-by-step into various levels of programming, and that design of the learning experience was the key to success in this initiative.

Our Solution
We spent considerable time with the SMEs to understand from scratch what they taught and designed the e-learning program that simulated a personalized coaching session that each employee can take in the self-paced environment. The design was kept flexible to accommodate learners with different speeds of learning and careful attention was given to details to ensure that students cannot move forward before demonstrating their understanding of the concepts they learnt. The learning design was kept highly interactive where learners inputs governed how the module would progress.

Impact
A 10 day, 80 man-hours classroom training was compressed to a 3.5 hours of training. Saving 75 man-hours for every learner who joined.
Upskilling time was reduced drastically from over 2 weeks to just a couple of days.
Company was able to extract their experts from the classroom back to the floor where they were required the most.
Company found the Digital Learning approach to be more effective in delivering training as it was like getting every new hire to sit with their expert one-on-one.