Incredible India: Improving the Koenig Solutions brand - Part I

Between expansion and improvement

As my trainingclasses draw to an end today, it has literally been 23 days of intensivecoaching with just Sundays off. There were days I just could not take in anymoreeither by reason of fatigue or incapacitation brought on by the differentenvironment I was in.

Koenig Solutions intheir training services have become a brand and one can understand that everyorganisation has to balance the demands of growth and improvement. As I havenoticed here and in many places, one always seems to take away from the other; the organisation has to be so utterly unique to manage both expansion andimprovement in tandem without falling a victim of its own previously acclaimed success.

The trainers are really good

The core resource poolof Koenig Solutions is their trainers, young, highly educated, probably drivenand maybe ambitious. It would appear the minimum academic requirement foracceptance into the training pool is a Masters degree, though I cannot say muchfor the other areas of their personal and personality development.

From what I haveobserved of some of them, they need some adventure and this cannot be acquiredby just meeting with trainees who come here from all the corners of the globe.

Language proficiency

English with allits complexities, exceptions and nuance is probably one of the most forgiving of international languages, even where the command of the language is nigh on appalling,if the trainer is quite conversant with the material, they can deliver thecurriculum well enough to the understanding of a majority of trainees who insome cases have English as a foreign language too.

In my view, I thinkKoenig Solutions should invest in more English language training for betterexpression and usage, not necessarily in the format of formal classes but inbonding encounters around debates, discussions, games and team-building. Thatway, people do not feel too exposed for their poor command of English eventhough they are brain boxes on the curriculum.

Koenig Solutionsrecently announced that certain courses will be conducted in French andconsidering the visitors from other Hispanic, Germanic and Lusophone countriesone would expect Spanish, German and Portuguese to follow; it is doubtful thatItalian will become one of those languages though Chinese will be aninteresting addition.

Employees include others

Koenig Solutions appearsto be a good employer when it comes to its trainers but those not the onlypeople in the employ of this organisation; I leave India mortified at theliving conditions of the staff of Koenig Inn and those of the people runningthe various apartments as reported by other trainees.

Beyond the maindistinguishing factor of good trainers, the only other basic advantage oftraining in India is cost and that is hardly a great differentiator anymore.Training organisations in Europe are trimming their costs and offeringincentives to attract the locals that will normally trot out to India.

Besides, Malaysiaand Thailand which I dare say are somewhat more exotic locations are offeringgreater competition and it is only a matter of time before experienced Koenig Indiastaff are lured away to train for these fledgling organisations that will behave newer and better equipment whilst offering even better support than KoenigSolutions has dared to attempt.

There are manyareas where Koenig Solutions is in need of considerable improvement and it is atask that requires purposeful and immediate attention.

Location

The reason why Idecided to take my training in New Delhi rather than at the other 3 centres inIndia was because I felt there was no way I could visit India without seeingthe Taj Mahal. However, New Delhi is under a constant haze of fog and pollutionit is really unhealthy at the best of times. The winter months are probably thebest months to come here but Dehradun and Goa will be in my list of options thenext time.

It is surprisingthat there are no training centres in Bangalore, Bombay or Chennai (Madras), Ido not know if Koenig Solutions plans to open centres there.

Management

Sometimes thingshappen within this organisation as if lessons are not being learnt. I can charta trail of management disarray and disorganisation from information I receivedfor getting my visa, through my being picked up at the airport, a poorintroduction process, tardy problem resolution from information dissemination,testing facilitation to internet connectivity and many other things that appearinconsequential but are major operational problems that show an organisationthat is not being run like a tight ship.

From observation,it is almost impossible to say that Koenig Solutions has been in this activityfor over a decade, for all the growth they seemed to have remained a tyroorganisation repeating the same mistakes, offering the same excuses and hardlyshowing characteristics of a learning organisation.

Facilities

To suggest many ofthe systems are old is to proffer an understatement. I have taken pictures ofsystems that charities will probably reject. Much of the equipment is out-datedand they are not keeping up with technical advancements in the industry.

For instance, theyoffer a 3-month after course support but what is required beyond the classes isgood access to the labs, even lesser organisations put a lot of stuff on thecloud. As I have noted before, it is amazing that an organisation that trainsin current networking trends and systems cannot offer remote labs when we arepresent in India and for a limited period of time after we have left India.

Koenig Solutionsmight not be allowed to upload core curriculum material but having been in thisbusiness for over a decade, they should still be able to provide genericaccessible systems in the cloud for trainees and ex-trainees to use to helpreinforce the training they received in India.

Having been in theMN-1 & MN-2 buildings, I cannot vouch for the other buildings but it didcross my mind that fire safety rules did not matter, I could see the one accessinto the office areas and quite restricted exits if anything happened. InEurope, none of these locations will pass a fire safety test or be granted afire safety certificate.

Impressions

All that said, Ihope that one fundamental piece of information has not been lost by KoenigSolutions, the idea that trainees that attend courses in December are probablyquite senior type personnel in a month that is not as busy.

They will formimpressions about the whole gamut of services apart from training provided byKoenig Solutions and that could well inform their recommendations in terms ofadvising others of attending courses here.

To think there ismuch incentive in the paltry sums offered for recommending others is a fallacy atbest, a service will be recommended if it exceeds expectations regardless ofcommission.

In general and myhonest opinion is this – Koenig Solutions offers excellent training in terms ofthe personnel, uses average equipment in the delivery of the curriculum, can bequite mediocre in addressing issues raised by trainees either at the trainingcentre or at the residences and really does not pass the muster of exceedingexpectations.

I might return toIndia, I am not fully persuaded of a second helping of Koenig Solutions butthen, I have only been in New Delhi; things can be different in Dehradun wherethey have their largest training centre, in Goa or in Shimla – there is much tobe desired but the experience has been eye-opening and wonderful.

Incredible India: Up Against the Koenig Imperative

Boot camp revamp

I had a majorfalling out with my trainer this morning on a number of issues regarding thedelivery of the curriculum leading to a certification I am in interested.

When it comes to bootcamp training, it can be difficult to balance the issues of time, completecoverage, teaching, explanation and preparation for tests.

Much as I will liketo attain my certifications as soon as possible, my learning methodology hasnever been by rote, accepted views or concepts have to have undergirding logicand I need to know that I am extending my body of knowledge.

The burden of history

For someone who hasbeen in the ICT profession for 23 years, one can safely say a good deal of theconcepts we take for granted today have their foundations in fundamentallyprimitive things we did decades.

People new to thefield may have no need for the history of how, why and what things are today,maybe that is an advantage or disadvantage but it is impossible to expect thosewho have experience to just become sponges of new thinking without referencingknowledge they already have or activities that have practical affinity with thetopic under discussion.

Intensive versus effective

Again, thecurriculum is delivered in 6 8-hour days and sometimes Sundays, the danger ofsaturation looms, the trainer wanting to cover the requisite material, thetrainee wanting to pace the absorption so that the quality becomes of greatersignificance than the quality.

In other words,there might be a case for 5 hours of effective training over 8 hours ofintensive training, each trainee knows what they can handle before they beginto wilt and that is only just human.

Delivery prowess

Then, there areamazing differences between the two trainers I have had, the Microsoft OfficialCurriculum is tied to Powerpoint slides that were followed quite closely andmade the taking of notes less easy especially in a one-on-one teaching setup.

The better deliverymethod with regards to the Powerpoint slides should have been having the slidesoffered as notes to trainees to annotate thereby helping link discussion withconcept and reference.

In the case of myCCNA trainer, she is no less than prodigious, in the 4 days of my trainingalready, she has not one referenced a note, she fills the board with pointafter point with literal total recall, in the probably 500 sentences she haswritten on the board, she has only once asked if one point had been written andthat point was probably the least significant of the lot.

Rhyme without reason

Things began toreach a head yesterday when first certain definitions appeared to challenge theconventional use of language, English being the medium but meanings appearingto indicate the opposite.

I could not absorbthe idea that Least Feasible Distance could go on to mean Best Option,regardless of tone, context, syntax or semantics, this was an exceptional anomalyand I felt quite uncomfortable with this.

I dare say Englishis not really the same between what is spoken and written in America and whatthe English speak especially when there is a purist determination in one’s modeof expression – that is just a fact.

English usage and meaning

I have worried thatI might get caught out with American usage and Americanisms and a typicalexample I give is our pants are never exposed whilst Americans wear theirsopenly. Alright, pants are underwear in England but trousers in America ifviewed from an English perspective just as a negative is always a negative onour side of the pond no matter how many you string together whereas in Americathe mathematical double negative take precedent to yield a positive or theaffirmative.

Another usage ofActive and Passive which had the implication of opposites in the class seemedto be given a much more acceptable reading when explained in another contextfrom other material I reviewed.

Just as we haveEnglish and US English dictionaries, I am beginning to think whilst allowancescan be made for similarity and difference, there might be a case for clearlydifferentiating the material and not assuming English is really the same aroundthe globe.

However, it waswhen a formula was written on the board that combined two unrelated units thatI had had enough. I was not in class to jettison my engineering background andthere had to be a reason why that formula was the accepted code.

Oranges and apples

At this point, Iwas impervious to the illogical and scientifically incorrect; I could notimagine that all the engineering in Cisco had produced a dimensional andmathematical inexactitude withoutreason.

That reason was notforthcoming, I was to absorb this by law and learn it by rote – for a personwho was first precocious, then inquisitive, interrogative, curious,questioning, researching and challenging assumptions no matter how widely held,this was one of those moments where without reason there could be no progress.

Yesterday, I gotup, closed my book, slammed the lid of my netbook and was ready to walk out ofthe course, she was able to placate me but I was far from satisfied.

Now, I know

On returning to myhotel, that was the first topic I researched and then I saw the extensiveformula that got condensed to what was written on the board, the engineeringand mathematical proof was evident – that for me is what you call theimpartation of knowledge and the fulfilment of understanding – the why and howwas there to see.

So, in the morningI took my discovery to my trainer and she acknowledged she knew this but it wasbeyond the scope of the course I was on. Whilst that was appreciated, I felt aconflict brewing because I was not just going to take everything as gospel butwill require clear detail where assumptions are made that seem to challenge theconcepts of language or science as predicated from my “wealth” of experience.

Fracture!

By the time we hadexchanged a few good views about the material it was time for my trainer to sayshe could no more continue the training and I felt we had reached an irreconcilableimpasse.

I then had ameeting with the officials and technical manager where generally what theyseemed to be concerned with was the method (The Koenig Imperative – course materialdelivered within constrained time-frames leading to certification).

In some ways, Iacquiesced and we agreed to continue the course because the curriculum isreally an abridged version of the more serious engineering concepts that I willfind more interesting and aligned to my engineering background.

Patching up

I can understand mytrainer’s frustrations though I cannot say she fully appreciates that I cannotextend my knowledge of these concepts just by faith without seeking thefundamental reasons for why and how such conclusions were arrived at – it isjust the bane of my kind of background, that I have become a somewhat difficultand impossible trainee after her having delivered this curriculum to well over500 trainees is unfortunate.

I am not a robot,God help my intellect and we both need a healthy dose of patience with eachother.

We appeared topatch things up and continue with the training, an interestingly eventful day. 

Incredible India: Seeking Koenig Solutions to Atrocious Conditions

Something of the heart

There are othermatters that might appear peripheral but are pertinent and demand urgent andeffective action on the part of those who have the power to implement change.

The need for arecognition of the fact that the broad experience of the boot camp trainingregime means we interface with more of the lower cadre of workers in the KoenigSolutions hierarchy and we cannot be oblivious of certain obvious and worrisomethings.

Apart from thetrainers who we interact with for about 8 hours a day, it is the young men atour accommodations that cater for our other needs in providing meals,facilitating our laundry, doing the housekeeping and sometimes having to tackleissues and problems they are barely equipped to handle like when the wirelessInternet connectivity service fails.

Such appalling conditions

One cannot fail tocommend these men either at the main Koenig Inn or at the other apartmentsdotted around New Delhi.

However, you canimagine my shock when I noticed that in a 24-room inn which is barely of 2-starquality I arrived to see that two of the workers at the inn were sleeping onthe floor. It is something I have seen a few times since and you just do notget used to it at all.

For whateverworking circumstances exist in India that might differ from those in elsewhereand for whatever satisfaction these men might have with their jobs, the momentthese conditions are exposed to those from outside India, the situation isuntenable.

It becomes anunbearable stain on our consciences where we dare to be humane and have a basicsense of dignity that people who toil tirelessly for our comfort are housed inconditions so appalling.

Shock does not describe it by half

Beyond that,reports from at least one apartment under the management of the KoenigSolutions entire indicate the workers have no toilet facilities that it is almosta moment of ululation when a guest leaves just because it affords them theopportunity to do things in a more healthy way.

I heard this, daysago; the shock of the news is just wearing off, but it is something that needswriting about and sorting out. The management at Koenig Solutions havingreceived prizes for being one of the best places to work for in India makes onewonder what kind of criteria is used to determine such an accolade.

Fundamentally, ifKoenig Solutions provides world-class training services, it is only incumbenton them to make provision of a better class of working and living conditions fortheir staff at these places.

Perish the thoughtthat Koenig Solutions for all the praise it has gotten the ignominy of being aprovider of world-class sweat shop conditions becomes the enduring experienceafter we have left for the comfort of our homes.