InnerWorkings Case Study Sample
In addition to the .NET 3.0/3.5 project, the second business priority at RCS was to build skills throughout the development organization. Achieving visibility into developers' skill sets using InnerWorkings reports has proved crucial to this objective. For Coffman, the most important consequence of this visibility is that it highlights potential knowledge gaps for his attention: "I know who has done a Drill and who hasn't. That's what I find most useful in the reports. My goal is to find out who hasn’t been using the Drills and then find out what's holding them back." He also sees a role for InnerWorkings reports in future project assignments. Using them, he can potentially identify which of his developers have achieved a key understanding of a particular technology and make an informed decision on the best people to assign to a particular project.
The InnerWorkings learning catalog is updated with new releases monthly, and currently includes Drills on key technologies like AJAX, .NET 3.5, Silverlight, Threading, and more. With over 550 hours of learning on offer, the depth and range of material helps all RCS developers remain current. Even those with strong ties to C and C++ are finding that learning C# isn't nearly as daunting as it could be. "With this approach, they’ve learned that firstly, using InnerWorkings isn’t as difficult as they'd envisioned and secondly, C# and the new technology isn’t as tough to learn as they thought it would be."
As Coffman explains, InnerWorkings has helped to broaden the pool of knowledge across the RCS team and all developers are encouraged to take the initiative on their learning goals. By seeking to avoid "pigeonholing" developers into particular areas, this learning culture is also motivating individuals to learn more and map their skills better to company aspirations over the long term: "We want everyone to get in the habit of staying current by learning new technologies. That gives us ways to be more innovative and think of different ways to use technology to improve our products."
