2003/4

Minutes of the TEC meeting of 13.11.2003

Present: M. Taborelli, C. Granier, J.M. Saint-Viteux, M. Storr, A. Fontbonne, S. Foffano, J. Ferguson, Paula Carvalho Correia, I. Bejar-Alonso, E. Mosselmans

Excused: S. Datta-Cockerill, F. Eder, M. Veyrat, P. Sievers, N. Polivka, A. Desirelli, V. Marchal, J. Schinzel

 

1. Minutes of last meeting and action points

The meeting was opened and E. Mosselmans was welcomed in his capacity as DTO for IT Division replacing F. Fluckiger who was thanked for his long and dedicated service to the TEC. J. Schinzel and P. Sievers were both also thanked for their contribution to training activities and the TEC as it was the last meeting for both of them. The future DTO of AB Division was introduced at the last meeting, and the future DTO of AT Division is yet to be nominated.  

There were no comments on the minutes of the last meeting which are therefore approved. The action points were reviewed:

Training Attestation – S. Foffano confirmed that in most cases 1 week following the training the information should be available within the AIS environment ready for self-service and printing on demand of the training attestation. Jean-Marc Saint-Viteux added that HRT would be the application used, however due to current load within the AS Division this development was not guaranteed for the end of the year as requested. S. Foffano added that training attestations are traditionally printed early in the year, therefore it was highly desirable that this facility should be made available as soon as possible in 2004 to avoid the mass printing of paper attestations. J. Ferguson committed to trying to get this development work advanced within AS. Action J. Ferguson to confirm development schedule as soon as possible.

Java & Oracle Certification – M. Storr reported that progress has been made with AS Division and Sun Microsystems. A Java engineer from AS Division will soon take the level 1 Java certification exam. (Since the TEC meeting the exam has been taken and successfully passed). The CERN Java trainer is also willing to sit the exam to better adapt the CERN Java training if necessary.

Oracle certification will be investigated with the Oracle trainers when they deliver on-site Oracle training in December 2003.  Action M. Storr to report back again at the next TEC meeting.

Dates of future TEC meetings in 2004 – J. Ferguson pointed out that the future of the JTB and TEC committees is currently uncertain and is pending discussion with R. Aymar. He confirmed that the next TEC meeting could only take place once the nominations of the Departmental Training Officers (DTO’s) had taken place.

June 2003 DTO meetings to discuss Technical Training – The report is being finalized and will soon be distributed to DTO’s by D. Vité.

2. Report from JTB of 21/10/03 & Management Board of 30/10/03

J. Ferguson reported on progress since the last TEC meetings with respect to the Management & Communication Core Development Package confirming that the pilot session had run with extensive feedback collected from participants as input for the JTB meeting of 21/10/03. Following the long discussions at the JTB meeting the recommendation which was taken to the Management Board was for an obligatory 3 day CERN specific module and a highly recommended but optional complementary module. The general feeling was that Part 1 is necessary for all Group Leader’s as no course currently offered gives all this training. Part 2 depends on the amount of Management & Communication training already followed by the Group Leader in question.

The Management Board heard about the history of the original training proposal, how it was modified, and the reaction of the pilot participants who had visibly talked to their Division Leaders. The proposal was accepted and 2 sessions of Part 1 will be run before the end of 2003, with 6 sessions already planned for 2004. The aim is to train the entire Group Leader population by end 2004.  Part 2 is likely to be 3 days with participation of external trainers. The current plan is to propose a pilot module of Part 2 for the first quarter of 2004. J. Ferguson commented on the constructive comments in the Management Board about such training, and the change of attitude since the beginning of the discussions. S. Foffano thanked J. Ferguson for his key role in getting the much-discussed proposal finally approved. 

M. Taborelli asked for information on the planned dates. S. Foffano replied that a web page with dates foreseen up to June 2004 is available.

J. Ferguson also reported on the discussion about External Training following the extensive input supplied by DTO’s, for which they were thanked. The view of the JTB is diverging however general support for the concept of support where the external training is in the interest of the organization was recognised. Diverging views on the 5 days + 1KCHF by some Divisions to much richer support from other Divisions were noted. The JTB should arrive at a general guideline however all decisions in the future will depend on the Department Leader. The discussion that followed in the TEC meeting indicated that the 1 KCHF is at least 10 years old and needs synchronized with today’s external training rates. The JTB is expecting some guidance from HR as to appropriate limits for such support to enable general guidelines to be recommended. While waiting for the JTB to formalise its position, previous Divisional practices will be continued.

3. Academic & Technical Training Status (link to presentation)

M. Storr reported on the Academic Training Programme for 2003/2004 with 2 lectures already delivered in 2003 and at least 12 confirmed for 2004. He commented that the Academic Training Programme was never discussed at the TEC before 2003 and finds the change quite positive to raise awareness about the programme amongst DTO’s. The Academic Training Committee is now chaired by Gian Giudice and met on 23/10/03 to hear reports from the Working Groups, a report from the Summer Student and High School Teacher programmes and reports from the CERN schools including the CERN School of Computing. M. Storr Remarked on the quality of the work behind the School of Computing recognising the efforts of F. Fluckiger. Issues discussed at the Academic Training Committee included budget for 2004, a move of the meetings to advance and optimize organization of the programme, and a request from the new Chairman for greater focus on the potential of distance learning.

On the Technical Training programme M. Storr reported that around 155 sessions are foreseen for 2003 up to the end of the year and presented the breakdown with respect to the different training categories. News was given about new sessions including Project planning with Microsoft  Project by P. Bonnal, CATIA (as a replacement for EUCLID), Oracle, MATHLAB and JDeveloper with full details on the Technical Training web pages. Labview training has been suspended due to a problem with the PC’s and card necessary to run such training. The Controls Board in IT Division has been warned and together with SPL Division is working on resolution of the problem.

Assisted self-teach Web Based Training is being investigated with a French/English trainer. S. Foffano remarked that ST Division had expressed interest in testing such an approach.

Finally some issues were raised concerning the impact of real cost charging, support for safety training with the future increasing load of safety courses, and infrastructure improvements including the Training Amphitheatre.

M. Taborelli questioned if the cost of external Labview training had been explored as an alternative to on-site training. M. Storr confirmed that all training solutions were being examined by IT and SPL Divisions.

4. Management, Communication & Language Training Status (link to presentation)

A. Fontbonne distributed the analysis of the needs of the participants in French language training since start-up in October illustrating that Speaking and Participating in meetings is the highest professional need. On average over all participants taking French Language training French is used at 46% in the workplace.

Special on-demand French courses have been organized for EST Design Office, Fire Brigade, PS operators (during shut-down), AS informatics (during summer), SL & PS operators (during shut-down), and individual training for people in DSU, TIS and SPL in each case the content was adapted to the professional needs and the duration and frequency was fixed as a function of the budget agreed with the Division.

A. Fontbonne reminded DTO’s that English training for Local Staff could be provided where necessary either on an individual, grouped or regular classroom learning basis.

Concerning the Management & Communication Training programme the dates of sessions for future Core Development Package for Group Leaders sessions were given. DTO’s were reminded that MAPS training is obligatory for all supervisors who will conduct annual interviews in 2004 and the dates of the planned sessions in both English and French were given. All details are also available on the web pages of the programme.

5. Any Other Business

On behalf of J. Schinzel, J. Ferguson confirmed that AB will continue to use a simplified version of their Individual Training Plan. He explained that the CCP sub-group monitoring MAPS had not conducted a full review of the MAPS process including exploitable information from an electronic MAPS document. Therefore AB will continue until this is implemented centrally.

Also on behalf of AB Division he added that very positive feedback had been received from participants at the recent Management & Communication 1-LM Training.

J. Ferguson reminded DTO’s that the TEC would not meet again until he and R. Aymar had met to discuss training and the future of the training committees, and closed the meeting.

 

 

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