Workshops: A better way of transferring knowledge

We at SJ Innovation, every Friday usually attend a Session/Presentation by one of our team members. Our Development Team would do the same. Pick up a Topic, prepare a presentation and share the knowledge with everybody in the team. We noticed that these kind of session were not beneficial for technical topics where the attendees would be learning something new. The next time you try to do, it becomes difficult to replicate by just looking at the slides.

So we thought of doing workshops, where the members would participate in the topic and code along with host. This would provide them a hands on experience with that particular technology. So next time they attempt to do something similar, they are in a better position to estimate and also work on a feature.

Workshops also provide the host with a more wider experience of the topic at hand. He would experience how team members with wide variety of expertise and knowledge cope with something new thrown at them. The host would also learn from various issues encountered with different team members which he may himself have never encountered while he was working on it.

Workshops are a much better way of transferring knowledge among the team members. For everybody attending the workshops, including the host, workshops are practical which could make them more fun and also provide a better understanding of the topic.