TalkingAboutApprenticeships

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Talking About Apprenticeships

Paul gave a brief presentation about the apprenticeship programme at 7digital and the Technical Academy that they started in 2012. He had Chris Watson with him, a former apprentice at 7digital and alumnus of the inaugural 7digital Technical Academy. This was followed by a gold fish bowl discussion on the topic of apprenticeships

The 7digital Technical Academy

The slides are available here: [[1]]

The basic summary is as follows:

• 7digital identified that they needed to start hiring people without experience in the XP, Lean and Agile practices that they use, in particular, test driven development
• There is a mismatch in the number of jobs available for people with no experience, versus those with 2 years or more - how are these more experienced jobs being filled? 7digital had trouble recruiting suitable senior level developers with the requisite skills
• They also wanted to hire more diverse developers from a wider range of backgrounds - not just CompSci graduates
• Apprentices were good for the team because they questioned your methods and asked about detail that was often overlooked
• The academy was started by forming a committee and defining a rough curriculum
• The sessions for split into a 6 week boot camp, 12 weeks of in-depth sessions, 12 weeks of specialisation sessions followed by graduation
• Classroom based lecture, discussion and workshop sessions were mixed with pairing, mentoring and every day work to help train the apprentices in new skills, methods and practices

Discussion Outcomes

Here is a summary of the unstructured discussion, starting with some questions about the 7digital programme specifically:

• Was the academy cost effective and how much time did it take? There was no official metrics taken for measuring the success of the 7digital academy as the outcome was more qualitative. Although they measure throughput and cycle time it was difficult to see if this was affected in any way by having the apprentices in, and whether the classroom sessions increased their knowledge without slowing the team down. There was also no measurement taken as a comparative control. Time spent on preparing sessions varied from none (for sessions that were discussion led) to a few days (for more complex sessions that were relevant to the team at large).
• Is the practice of apprenticeships transferable to other departments? Not tried at 7digital nor had anyone else. It does allow internal recruitment in the technology team.
• Mutual learning between the apprentice and company was seen as a good reason to try this out.
• Mentor relationships were explored: team leads, senior management and mentors could help integration - particularly useful if you're shy or struggling.
• A point about pre/post industrial apprenticeships - are you an apprentice to a person or a company, which is better? The 7digital programme apprenticed the people to a team but a few people were single person companies/contractors so how could an apprentice work for them?
• How can you teach about pairing, and how to be an effective apprentice? No-one had experience with this. It was deemed harder with a 1-2-1 relationship (as in pre-industrial apprenticeships) as you can't take a step back.
• Moving on, questions were aiming at Chris and his experience as an apprentice
• Sometimes you would learn something that isn't used for a while, or not learn something you need straight away. This was countered at 7digital by having open, reactive sessions that were scheduled but not planned.
• Did you get chance to ask why? Yes, and it felt like holding back the team. The later sessions on the same topics were helping and explained why.
• Supporting team members in teaching apprentices – through regular 1-2-1 feedback. 7digital also had a wiki for resources to help and ensured new facilitators could speak to people who had done it before.
• Sometimes trouble with people having patience for teaching, but also apprentices need to relax and improve social skills.
• Encouraged team to listen to apprentices.
• What happens when the apprenticeships don’t work out? 7digital had a 6 month probation period with 2 weeks notice so both parties could easily part company if they would it wasn't right or working for them.
• Apprentices paid less than rest of team (but they do get training).
• Internships?
• Don’t limit offering apprenticeships to graduates. (particularly considering fewer people won’t be able to afford university fees)
• Minimum requirements: 7digital expect their apprentices to have seen some code, but nothing more. This helps the diversity - applicants included a musician, physicist and member of the operations team.