Recommended Training Procedures Proposal
ICG NOC Training Recommendations
A Wordperfect Version of this will also be made available
shortly.
With the recent losses in experienced personnel, along with the recruitment
of personnel with inadequate experience to immediately take weight off of those
currently working serious issues in NOC, it is recommended that a training progr
am be implemented that would both increase the capability of newer team members
more rapidly as well as release some tension that is currently in the work
environment. The following is a detail of these proposals, to be reviewed by
Jerry & Co. (You know who you are, or else you wouldn't have this web page :).
This page does not in any manner imply any sort of degredation towards those
without previous work experience; it merely assumes that the current training
procedures are inadquate, and need to be corrected to further both the personal
and group work environments. No one likes feeling like they aren't progressing.
The following is an outline of what this web document is going to cover
in terms of what should be taught in what order for maximum progression of
knowledge to those who are new. These are just first thoughts, of course;
this page is up to get your imput, not tell you how I demand it be done. But
something needed to be put up.
Basics of the job. What I mean by this is not basics of the
network. I mean, we all know what we do; we fix the network. But what do we
do. This is meant to cover network architecture in its most base form: the
way that a pop is layed out, how a customer dials in, the different services
that are provided (dedicated versus dialup), how we are able to dial in, monitor
and implement fixes to network issues. One way that we must implement training
is by remembering that new trainees are going to be exposed to the network
through the job that they do, and there is not going to be anything that can
be done to isolate what they do to what they learn (nor would we want to if
that choice was given; the more exposure they better). What must be done,
however, is to make sure that a question and answer period is not allowed to
convolute the process of learning what is taught at the time. In other words,
stick to the curriculum while at the same time not blowing off questions.
"That will be addressed later" is a perfectly acceptable answer, as we will
be covering those things most likely.
The most straightforward way I can think of training is to form a
linear line from the time a person clicks 'dial' on their access software
at home to the time that they 'disconnect'. We simply draw out the process,
and follow that process in a basic manner. More details on that are going
to be provided here.
To summarize it, we troubleshoot every process that could go wrong durin
g
the course of an online session. Inevitably, the farther you get into a connecti
on,
the more complex the process of connecting to the internet and interacting with
it you get. Going from troubleshooting dial errors (RNAs, CNLs, so forth) to
things such as internet routing and the IP protocols and how they interact
with a Cisco router. This will help in two ways; not only will it allow for
people to get more comfortable with the (usually) simpler AE aspects and issues
before having to deal with the more complex issues of the network, but it will
also still insure that they get hands on experience with the Cisco equipment
that will govern both sides of the NOC troubleshooting areas. Someone familiar
with enable and checking out AE configurations will inevitably have an easier
time transitioning to commands to help with the network, even if the actual
experience with the network won't benefit as much from extensive access
engineering experience.
There is the issue of training while at the same time addressing the purpose of
the training: the lack of experienced personnel to deal with the network. For
the most part, we have to go to the fact that a lot of people know at least
the basics of the access engineering field; enough to provide the training
necessary to build upon the core concepts through independent study. The AE
webdocs are a useful resource (I'll categorize and arrange them through an
independent web page in a manner that makes it easier for people to go to
them) once one has an idea of the basics, and can be utilized thoroughly to
take strain and time away from the workload that would go into training.