Learning and Development: 70:20:10
Discover more from All Remote - with Mark Wormgoor
Learning and Development: 70:20:10
More than just completing your next Udemy course
You have your team of software developers. We live in a world where the tech landscape is constantly evolving. The age-old saying of "Never stop learning" rings truer than ever. How do you ensure your developers stay current effectively?
The rapid pace of technological development means developers must continuously update their skills. My LinkedIn feed is full with just about everyone completing their certificate on some “Introduction to Generative AI”. Training is just a small first step of learning. Skill is only built by practice.
The 70:20:10 Framework
Going back to the Middle Ages, crafts were taught by the Guilds. One of the purposes of a guild was to maintain standards. If you wanted to become a black-smith, you would join a master as an apprentice. The master would teach you the skills, and the apprentice would help the master in their work. After learning the basics of the craft, an apprentice would become a journeymen. They could work as a black-smith, be paid for their work, but were still learning. Only after several years could they become a master.
The 70:20:10 learning framework is almost 30 years old. It is based on a survey conducted in 1996 asking nearly 200 executives to self-report how they believed they learned.[1] It is used in many organizations to date to ensure training isn’t lost, but aligns with real-world scenarios and challenges - and the knowledge sticks.
Breaking that down:
Only 10% of our learning consists of formal training - including courses and certifications.
The next 20% of our learning is “social”. We learn from peers or mentors. For your developers, this comes from code reviews, pair programming or possibly group problem-solving sessions.
The majority, 70% of our learning, actually comes from doing, making mistakes and trying again. For your developers, that includes doing actual coding, and debugging.
In the past, when I received a training request, I would sit down with that person and see how and where they were going to apply that skill in their day-job. We’d create a plan together, and after the training had happened, ensured that they would practice their newly learned skill regularly.
How to apply?
Training your developers is critical to their continued growth, as well as to your organization’s future. So:
Create Real-world Application plans: Assign real-time projects and challenges to developers to apply new knowledge. Why not create a new side project for your developers to apply their new knowledge? If they are learning about LLM’s, setup a small internal project where they can apply that knowledge. Who knows, it might even turn into a cool new feature for your product.
Promote Collaborative Projects: Encourage team collaborations or set up mentoring programs where senior programmers regularly check in with more junior developers.
Create Training Programs: While this is just 10%, ensure that your team has access to quality structured learning. Sit down with each of your developers, figure out what it is they want to (or should) work on and establish a structured training plan, including mentoring and opportunities to apply new knowledge.
On the one hand, it’s a common myth that only training is sufficient to learn something new. On the other hand, an equal myth is that just reading a couple of blogs and getting started on your own is sufficient to read a new skill. The best way to learn something new is to combine all three: training, mentoring and doing.
Are you looking to hire remote developers, but still unsure if remote is for you? Would like to learn more about training your developers? Reach out to us at Tairi.
Now that we’ve covered hiring and onboarding, and the 70:20:10 model, in my next story, I’m going further into training, learning & development. If you haven’t already, subscribe below to receive it!