Cprime Creates Custom Training Pathways for a Multinational Consumer Electronics Icon

The Client

This global technology leader builds popular consumer electronics devices like smartphones, computers, tablets, and wearable accessories, as well as software, productivity, and entertainment products. They have developed a reputation for innovation and a sleek design ethos that have made them an international household name.

The Challenge: Upskilling from Within — Creating New Career Opportunities in an Established Workforce

In response to a growing global shortage of technical talent and high attrition rates, this client looked inward to address some of its technical staffing needs.

“The rationale is simple—there’s a very competitive hiring landscape for specific roles in the technology workforce economy,” explains Chris Knotts, a Director in the Cprime Learning Practice. “As a result, the device manufacturer wanted to cultivate talent from within their own ranks. Selecting and promoting people already familiar with their culture not only improves employee retention over the long term, it is also more cost effective.”

It was not an idea new to the organization. The company already had a mechanism in place to recruit and upskill employees, but the program had a limited scope and capacity. The device manufacturer wanted to expand its internal retraining capabilities to include two emergent high-demand subject areas—Quality Assurance (QA) and Enterprise Program Management (EPM).

The fundamental challenge for the company, however, wasn’t a lack of expertise, it was a lack of bandwidth.

“They knew exactly what they wanted to do, they just needed help with the execution. They wanted someone to overcome the hurdles that prevented them from doing it themselves,” says Knott. “They needed external muscle to come in and perform the administration, needs assessment, and training design and then get in there and do the actual coaching.”

To achieve that within a limited timeframe, the company required an experienced training partner with established expertise and an inventory of relevant course materials. While they expected a customized training experience tailored to their needs, they did not want to begin from scratch.

Solution: Cprime—a Multi-Disciplined Team with the Right Educational Assets

Based on previous success working together to fulfill its Atlassian tooling needs, the manufacturer shortlisted Cprime as a candidate in its request for proposal (RFP) call. Cprime won the bid on the strength of its expansive subject expertise and proven track record.

“Cprime met all their personnel and asset requirements,” says Knotts. “We had the experience and instructors, and our learning catalog contained the exact course materials that they wanted us to design.”

The Cprime team began the course design phase by sitting down with the management and supervisory teams to further sharpen requirements and clarify expectations. Cprime then collaborated with the company over the course of two months to develop and deliver multiple iterations of the training.

 

“They knew exactly what they wanted to do, they just needed help with the execution, someone to overcome the hurdles preventing them from doing it themselves. They wanted skilled external muscle to come in and perform the administration, needs assessment, and training design and then get in there and do the actual coaching.” — Chris Knotts, Director, Cprime Learning Practice

 

Rapidly Iterating to Meet Client Requirements

Each of the iterations involved further defining the course design and objectives, selecting and refining course content, and creating assessment criteria to determine successful learning outcomes. A multi-disciplined Cprime team of nine people provided input to ensure the courses reflected the most up-to-date industry best practices. Leadership and subject experts from the device manufacturer’s internal talent development team provided regular input to maintain alignment between Cprime’s output and the company’s culture and ways of working.

“We worked directly with their QA and EPM stakeholders, embedding with the functional heads of the teams that we would train, so they could inject their input right from the beginning,” says Knotts. “We ended up with the Quality Assurance and Enterprise Project Management learning tracks based on Cprime library materials but entirely unique to the device manufacturer’s needs.”

The resulting course materials combined core Cprime course content with practical use cases that helped students relate them to real-world situations and expanded their understanding of how the principles fit the manufacturer’s greater project environment.

An experienced Cprime enterprise technology coach then delivered each session, beginning with core concepts and shifting into on-the-job mentorship, demonstrating key competencies on the job.

“The Cprime technology coaches got deeply involved with the teams, fostering the practical application of the software testing they were teaching,” says Knotts. “It wasn’t a matter of spoon-feeding them a lecture, It was very hands-on.”

 

“We worked directly with their Quality Assurance and Enterprise Program Management stakeholders — embedding with the functional heads of the teams that we would train — so they could include their input right from the beginning.” — Chris Knotts, Director, Cprime Learning Practice

 

Results: Off-the-shelf Training Content Combined With Custom Coach Delivery

With only two months to prepare, Cprime delivered two intensive, ten-day training sessions. The coaches began training the first cohorts of the device manufacturer’s internal promotion candidates on the new learning tracks in month three.

The Cprime trainers then oversaw concurrent online and localized training sessions at the client’s main California campus, training over 70 people across five cohorts.

Despite the very intensive preparation, planning, and tight timeframes, Cprime received positive feedback from the students and impressed the company leadership with their results.

“Our emphasis on the hands-on, real-world coaching component enhanced what could have easily been dry, theoretical training sessions has been really meaningful for the students,” says Knotts. “Both the students and the stakeholders really liked what we were doing and how we did it.”

Because of early successes with the pilot, the device manufacturer is already looking toward a continued partnership.

“They invited Cprime to plan a second set of sessions,” says Knotts. “They knew exactly what they needed and their standards were high. Because the project was under such heavy scrutiny, It’s been really satisfying to exceed their expectations.”

 

“Cprime’s emphasis on hands-on, real-world coaching component into what could have been dry, theoretical, training sessions has been really meaningful for the students. Both the students and the stakeholders really liked what we were doing and how we did it.” — Chris Knotts, Director, Cprime Learning Practice

If you’d like to see similar results for your organization, explore our flexible Learning Pathways and Technical Coaching solutions.