Partner Training at Arm has been a great success over the last 15 years. It has expanded the knowledge and capabilities of our Partners’ Engineering teams by delivering classroom sessions to over 4000 attendees in 2016 alone and has helped our Partners reduce their time to market.
Recently, however it has become clear that our Partner’s training needs have been changing and we were going to have to change to meet them.
Feedback has highlighted that Partners were increasingly:
We were also very aware that due to cost, geographic issues and team sizes that classroom training wasn’t accessible to many of our smaller Partners, especially in the growing IoT space.
Changes in University learning were also impacting the way in which new engineers joining our Partners wanted to learn. Gone are the days of long university lectures, replaced instead by online videos and follow up labs with small discussion forums, more in tune with the way in which digital natives want to learn. These very same digital natives are now entering the work place and expect similar training approaches.
General trends in corporate learning also point to new digital training methods becoming the norm. In recent Fosway Group digital learning realities research, 87% of those surveyed highlighted increased availability of training as a key driver for moving to digital learning, with 70% pointing to digital training as having the most impact for Product, System and Technical Training. Over 70% of also highlighted mobile and video based learning and key areas where demand was increasing.
1.1 Fosway Group Digital Learning Realities Research 2017
Our current classroom only training needed to evolve, but without surrendering the face time with our engineers that our Partner’s really value.
The solution – to invest in an online training platform, develop online content using our experienced Arm Engineers and invest in a ‘Classroom training in the digital age’ training programme for our engineers to help them to embrace more interactivity when in the classroom.
An in-depth set of requirements was gathered and platform vendors requested to pitch. Having gone through a full procurement process, a ‘disruptive, next generation Learning Management System‘ platform – Fuse Universal was selected.
The platform offers open APIs for integration into
It surfaces content easily through search facilities, what’s new and trending widgets as well as more formal structured learning plans making it ideal to offer training to digital natives and to Partners that can’t take our classroom training. It also has a social element, multiple language options, knowledge checks and is available via browser or mobile apps keeping Arm up to date with the industry digital learning expectations.
2.1 Arm Online Training Promotional Video (available on YouKu here)
Having the correct platform is only half of the story. It’s like having a professionally fronted shop but with no products on the shelves. Content is king and by tapping into the depths of knowledge and content on hand via our engineers, coupled with guidance and creativity of our instructional designers, seven full modules and an introduction were created.
These modules were built using a combination of existing PowerPoint slides and notes, graphics and images from our brand team, pulled together with voice over, translated transcripts (Simplified Chinese) and closed captions (subtitles) in the TechSmith’s Camtasia rapid online training tool. Each module is around 45 mins long, and is split into 2-3 min bite sized videos. A full list of the modules can be seen here.
3.1 Online Training Available at Launch
These modules have been carefully selected to offer training that generates the greatest reach, whilst also offering a replacement to some of the early face to face modules. By allowing Partners to access the online training before the classroom, it will ensure a base level of knowledge for delegates and will allow more time for discussion, labs and problem solving at the live event.
Having given previews at the Arm Partner Meeting (APM) and with the platform and content in place, the total solution was launched at Arm TechCon 2017, with follow up events at the Arm Tech Symposia, supported by LinkedIn and Twitter campaigns. We already have Partners, EDA vendors and Arm Approved Training Partners using the platform with the promise of many more to come.
3.2 Arm TechCon and Tech Symposia Launch
The final piece of the jigsaw, following requests from our own Arm Engineers who deliver the training, was to design and roll out a ‘Classroom training in the digital age’ internal training course. The focus of which was to help take our already highly experienced trainers and help further extend their already great training skills. Working closely with our Arm Talent and Development team, an external training provider, Lane4 was selected to help develop and deliver the course.
So far, we have delivered 5 of these session, trained 66 delegates and received the following comments:
One of the best courses I’ve ever been on!
There is a better way!
Truly inspiring
4.1 Classroom Training in the Digital Age - Practical Sessions
By role modelling great delivery and giving the engineers time to give new training techniques a go in a safe and fun environment, best practice aspects have already started to appear in Partner training sessions and help meet their changing training needs.
2018 promises to be an exciting year building on from the foundations already laid. We are looking to introduce new platform functionality such as:
We also have exciting new content planned, including:
For further information please comment on this blog, email Online Training at Arm, or access the online training platform for yourself on our developer website