Knowledge Transfer Techniques to Help Others

Maclean Liu(刘相兵

1Abstract
Everyoneis new to Oracle and other computer technology at one time oranother. As we continue to work with various computer products andtools, we gain more knowledge and experience. At the same time, thereare always new people that could really benefit from our help andexpertise. This paper covers some useful knowledge transfer (KT) andcoaching tips as well as techniques and benefits from sharing our ITknowledge and experience with employees, users and colleagues who arenewer to Oracle and other computer technology.

2Introduction
Knowledgetransfer and coaching are essential to build up knowledge andexpertise within an organization to avoid critical knowledge goingout the door with no replacement when there are resource changes.Projects are more likely to be successful and with lower risk ifknowledge and experience can be easily shared with others. It isimpossible to know everything. Just when we think we have mastered asoftware product, a new version comes along. Therefore it isimportant to share our knowledge and expertise. By helping others,everybody wins.
Everyonealso has a lot of knowledge and experience, both technical andnon-technical built up working with Oracle and other IT products ingeneral. It is important that we share what knowledge we have withothers, either with our employees, users, colleagues, or with theuser community at large. As a manager or project leader, you willwant your employees to get up-to-speed as part of the team buildingprocess. At the same time, you expand your own knowledge and skillsby learning new things.
2.1Experince Levels
SinceIT systems as well as Oracle and others products can be vast andcomplex, everyone regardless of their experience level has somethingto offer others. Someone currently working in the trenches such as adeveloper or DBA will have a lot of specific technical knowledge. Amanager or project leader who has worked for many years on a varietyof IT projects will likely have board range of experience at both thetechnical and non-technical levels and will have a very good ideawhat works and what doesn’t.
2.2.Make Yourself Know
Makeyourself known so others are aware of your experience and yourwillingness to help. If a project is successful, word will likely getaround. Someone may refer you or even recruit you. You can also letothers know more directly through personal contacts, e-mails ornetworking opportunities. Giving presentations and posting personalinformation such as your CV or white papers you have written on a website will also make people aware of your skills.
3Documentation
Writingand maintaining good documentation is essential for KT as a legacy topass on to others.
3.1Project Management and Other Documentation
Forproject management there are Project Charters, Project Plans,analysis and design documents and Gantt charts. Other documentationincludes user guides, systems and developer/programmer guides,operations guides and client specifications.
3.2Service Requests and Consultation Logs
Itis high recommended that every project have some kind of Servicerequest handling system and possibly a consultation log to keep trackor problems and resolutions. These are very useful for futureemployees should a similar problem reappear and they can be posted onan Intranet web site.
Ourproject uses both an HTML based Service Request (SR) system and an MSExcel based consultation log to keep track of all problems, errormessages, enhancements, maintenance and resolutions. We also add inanalysis, data and report examples, actual code and the length oftime taken and date a problem was resolved.

4Coaching
4.1General Coaching
Ourknowledge and experience can often be shared through coaching.General or informal coaching can be simply providing specific helpwith a problem or tool, or more general assistance, guidance andadvice to newer people. As a manger or project leader, you may havetechnical people reporting to you that would greatly benefit fromyour experience. You may be directly responsible for insuring thatyour employees have the skills to do what is expected of them.  As aservice provider, you may be called upon to provide technical adviceto users. With any new person taking over a job, there should be someoverlap to allow time for more direct KT.
4.2Formal Coaching
Formalcoaching, in the management sense the word may involve an agreementbetween the person doing the coaching (whether a manger, projectleader, DBA or other knowledgeable person) and a person who requirescoaching in order to help them get up-to-speed learning new skills.
Formalcoaching may be required when an employee has experienced a change inthe work place, such as a new assignment using new software tools,when training needs to be combined with practical work experience,when a performance assessment is required, or when ongoing jobsupport is needed. Regular meetings are held between coach and theperson being coached. Ground rules are agreed upon. The personcoaching actively listens to the person being coached. A diagnosis ofa problem is done and a plan of action is agreed upon. Follow upmeetings are held later to see what progress has been made to answerspecific questions and to assess the effectiveness of the coaching.(Xebec 1997).

5IT Knowledge and Skills
Thefollowing is a general list (not in any particular order) oftechnical and non-technical IT skills that can be shared with others.
5.1Technical Skills

• DBA        and iAS functions (install, configuration, monitoring, space        management, backup)        
• Service        Oriented Architecture (SOA) products
• Network        and OS administration
• Programming        and performance tuning        
• Designer,        Developer Suites and JDeveloper
• System        upgrades
• Internet        and web development
• Java,        J2EE and OO languages
• Trouble        shooting and debugging skills
• Configuration        management and version control
• Analysis,        design and testing (at a lower level)
• Running        production jobs
• Using        3rd party software
  

5.2Non technical skills

• Managing        a development team
• Project        Charters and project management
• Planning,        estimating, financing and budgeting
• Database        design and standards
• Contracting,        negotiating, procurement and licensing
• Client        and customer support
• User        requirements and specifications
• Analysis        and design (higher level)
• User        acceptance testing
• Feasibility        studies and risk management
• Presentation,        proposal and demonstration skills
• Training        and presenting
• Marketing        the system
• Technical        writing
• Staff        recruitment, interviewing and evaluation        
  

6Motivation
Thereare a number of important reasons for KT.
6.1Reduces Potential Risk
Reducingrisk is a very important part of IT development these days. In anyorganization, people come and go all the time. Knowledge transfer andcoaching helps ensure that others will be able to take over should aknowledgeable person leave the project or organization. This reducesrisk and increasing the probability that a project will be completedon time and on budget and with newer knowledgeable people in place tosupport it.
6.2Good for the Project
Showstoppers can hold up a critical project. By providing immediatetechnical assistance, a project team can more quickly overcome oravoid roadblocks. Some technical problems can be solved immediatelyby a knowledgeable person that might otherwise take days for aninexperienced person to do. Projects are more likely to be successfulif an experience person can share their expertise when needed inorder to keep the project on track and avoid problems they may haveencountered in the past. Major disasters are more likely to beavoided if those involved seek the help and approval of expertsbefore doing something critical.
6.3Part of Your Job
Youmay have some technical people, either developers or DBAs, reportingto you. Since management is “getting work done through others”you will want to help your employees develop their skills. This doesnot mean always doing everything for them, but rather helping themdevelop their own analysis, design, programming and problem solvingskills through coaching. Part of your job may involve going to Oracleseminars and conferences and to disseminate what you have learned. Asa hired consultant on a project team, part of your job may be toshare your expertise with permanent employees on a project.
6.4Increases Confidence in Others
Ifyou can transfer your knowledge to your employees, they will becapable of doing the job should you be away. This provides a certain"peace of mind" in knowing that they can handle the jobeven if you are away on vacation or for some other reason.
6.5Very Rewarding
Assistingothers can be a very rewarding on a personal level. It increases yourown technical knowledge while at the same time developing researchand people skills. It also gives one a positive feeling that they arecontributing to the organization in other ways than just their usualjob activities and that your knowledge and expertise is of benefit toothers.
6.6More Valuable to the Organization
Youbecome more valuable to the organization if you are willing and ableto provide assistance and share your expertise with others. Sharingyour expertise shortens the learning curve for others and it helpsthem avoid potentially costly development pitfalls. It may alsoreduce the overall need in your organization for expensive training.
6.7Learn More Technical Skills
Youcan learn a lot of technical things by helping others. First, youfind out pretty quickly what you don’t know (but perhaps shouldknow). Second, it keeps you on your toes by forcing you to do somefast research or conducting experiments with the product. Oftenpeople who are newer to Oracle and other products try out the latestfeatures right away, and so become experts at using them beforeothers have tried them. By working with new people, you become moreaware of what new features are available before you need to use themyourself. They may also question old and possibly obsolete ways ofdoing things.
6.8Builds Good Relations
Helpingothers will build up good interpersonal relationships making othersmore likely to help you if needed in the future. Being regarded as anOracle “expert” or “guru” is of no benefit to anyone if youare unwilling to offer assistance either directly or indirectly whencalled upon.
6.9Better Employee Retention
Employeesare more likely to want to stay with an organization if they feelthey are being assisted and supported by more experienced people in afriendly and supportive atmosphere. Everyone is happier in anenvironment where knowledge is shared.

7Direct Help: Tips & Technques
Thefollowing are some suggestions for directly assisting others.
7.1Levels of Assistance
Varioussituations call for different levels of assistance. An experienceperson could be a programmer or DBA currently working in the trenchesthat can occasionally provide direct technical assistance, or he orshe could be a manager or project leader that can provide ongoingguidance and advice at a higher level. The level of assistance couldvary from immediate help with a performance tuning to providingsuggestions for how best to normalize a database design. It alsodepends on how experienced the person being helped is, either withOracle in general or with a specific tool. Different situations callfor different levels of help.
7.2Direct Involvement
Oftenproviding assistance involves direct one-on-one meetings with someoneto solve a problem. For example, say you have had a few years ofexperience with SQL*Plus and PL/SQL, you could be called upon to helpsomeone with a specific SQL problem. Listen to what they want to doand make suggestions. You may try some experiments with the codeyourself or provide some examples of past work. Have them conduct SQLexperiments themselves based on your suggestions and then follow upto see how they made out.
Coachingmay also be in the form of ongoing guidance and suggestions whereideas and solutions may be run by you to see if they appear sound.This can help avoid major design pitfalls that those newer to Oraclemay not be aware of (Holmes 1999).
7.3Mentoring
Mentoringis a method of sharing expertise with a new person. It may come aboutinformally or through a formal mentoring program. Mentoring involvesmatching up a new person with someone more senior with the focus onsharing experience and wisdom. The mentor may act as a role model,adviser, coach or advocate for the employee. Mentoring can havebenefits such as an accelerated learning curve and increased employeeproductivity. However, it can be a problem if the mentee becomes toodependent on the mentor for help (Stone 1999).
7.4Encourage Experimentation
Encourageexperimenting directly with the product. There is no substitute forhands on experience. If you don’t know exactly how to do something,try programming through a basic example. I have been frequently askedhow to solve a particular SQL problem that I did not know to do offhand, but was able to figure it out after programming through somebasic SQL examples. This is also useful when attempting to duplicatean error message or bug.
7.5Provide Concrete Examples & Standards
Ifyou have a particular programming standard you wish to enforce oralready have a certain coding solution, then provide some concreteexamples. These can be used as a template for further developmentprojects and can help avoid “re-inventing the wheel”. Rather thandescribing a solution verbally, send an example by e-mail. Whensyntax is written down, there is less room for error and the text canbe cut and pasted directly into a command line or source code.
7.6Hold Group Discussions
Groupdiscussions are useful for handling many questions from many peopleat the same time. Outside experts can be brought in from otherprojects or organizations to field questions. Group discussions arealso useful for coding reviews and brainstorming sessions.Brainstorming encourages everyone to contribute his or her ideas fordiscussions. Even a bad idea may spark someone to coming up with avery good one.
7.7Act as a Resource Person
AnOracle resource person can be assigned to an area to provideexpertise and support as needed without being directly involved in aproject. For instance, a user area may have someone available from adevelopment area to assist with ad hoc SQL queries or performancetuning when called upon.

8Indirect Help: Tips & technques
Thefollowing are some indirect methods for helping others.
8.1Referrals
Ifunable to assist directly, refer the person to a more knowledgeablecolleague. They may in turn refer the person to someone else and soon, until a contact is made with someone who can help. It is usefulto keep a list of known experts both inside and outside theorganization with their phone numbers and e-mail addresses. In largeorganizations such as Statistics Canada, there is a formal Help Deskthat can find someone to either help directly or to log a concernwith Oracle Technical Support. Also refer them to Google (to searchinformation), manuals, textbooks, conference proceedings and otherOracle related web sites. Some examples of web sites with usefulinformation are ioug.org, oracle.com, metalink, technet and appsnet.
8.2Textbooks
Besidesthe usual collection of online and hardcover Oracle manuals, it is avery good idea to buy your own copies of Oracle and other computertextbooks. Oracle Press, O’Reilly and others have a number ofexcellent Oracle textbooks available. Regard their purchase as aninvestment in your career and recommend that your company libraryalso purchase some copies that can be borrowed. I have a stack ofover a dozen Oracle textbooks in my office on everything fromperformance tuning to SQL*Plus and PL/SQL. That doesn’t mean I haveread them all, but I do have the information at my fingertipswhen needed either by others or myself.
8.3Centers of Expertise
Oneway of concentrating and developing Oracle and other expertise in onearea is to set up a formal “Center of Expertise” (CoE). It couldbe made up of a group of Oracle or other experts within anorganization. They would work for a limited time on a variety ofprojects on an as needed basis. This also facilitates the sharing ofexpertise and research across many projects and helps avoid isolatedpockets of knowledge that can arise from lack of interaction betweendifferent divisions and project teams. It also provides moreopportunity for people in the group to gain further training andexperience. In the author's organization, (i.e. Statistics Canada'sSystems Development Division) there are CoEs for Oracle DBA support,SAS, Web Development and MS SQL Server.
8.4SWAT Teams
ASWAT team (i.e. Special Weapons And Tactics)can also be established, comprised of experts that are called upon incritical situations such as major performance problems or backup andrestore problems.
8.5Bring in Experts
Itcan be useful to bring in knowledgeable and experienced consultantsfor a limited time on a project. As part of their contact, they cancoach permanent staff members and help bring them up-to-speed.Consultants and vendors can also be brought in to deliver technicalseminars and special training courses when required. Our organizationrecently invited Oracle consultants to do a successful 2 week ServiceOriented Architecture (SOA) Proof of Concept project for us at theirexpense. Both gained valuable experience and goodwill from workingtogether on the project.
8.6User Groups
UserGroups facilitate the sharing of information through networking,testimonials, Q & A sessions and presentations. Staff should beencouraged to attend their local User Group meetings and to givepresentations related to their own experience.

9Articles and Presentations
Writingpapers, publishing articles and giving presentations are ways toshare your expertise on a wider basis.
9.1Technical Papers
Writing your ideas andexperiences down in technical papers (also called white papers) is away of disseminating your knowledge to others on a wider scale.Papers can be e-mailed to others, posted on an Intranet site fordissemination within an organization, or made available worldwide onan Internet site. It also makes yourself know to others.
9.2Articles
Oncea technical paper is written, it can also be converted into anarticle for publication in a computer magazine. This provides widercoverage to a specific audience and it can be very exciting andrewarding. First, try getting published in Oracle User Groupmagazines like SELECT, SQL>UPDATE, The NorthWest Oracle andothers. They are always looking for good articles from the usercommunity on everything from helpful tips to applications stories.You can also send in letters-to-the-editor if you have triedsomething based on a tip from a previous article.
Ifyou want to get paid for writing, try publications such as OracleMagazine, Oracle Internals and Intelligent EnterpriseMagazine. These magazines usually want a query letter sentfirst, outlining what you would like to write about along with someexamples of previous work (referred to as clippings). Based on thismaterial, the magazine may ask you for a full article. Publicationweb sites usually have a “Guidelines for Authors” section thatspells out what they are looking for and what format is required.Payment is usually so much per article of a certain size, or morespecifically by the number of words or pages.
9.3Internal Presentations
Anotherway of KT through sharing your expertise with many people is bygiving presentations. These can be about specific KT information.They can also be based on documentation or technical papers andarticles you may have already written. There is more direct audienceinvolvement and interaction where specific questions can be asked.
Lookfor opportunities to give presentations and demos within your companyor at user group meetings. Our organization, , has an internalStatistics Canada Oracle User Group (STC OUG) that encouragesemployees to give presentations on conferences they have attended,Oracle software tips and techniques, and development projects.Schedules of presentations as well as handouts and white papers areposted on an Intranet web site and available to everyone.
Tofurther develop one’s presentation skills, I would recommendjoining a Toastmaster Public Speaking club. Toastmaster is anon-profit organization dedicated to improving one’s publicspeaking and communications skills in a fun and supportiveatmosphere, with over 8,000 clubs in 60 countries. Both StatisticsCanada and Oracle Corp HQ have their own Toastmasters clubs.
9.4Presenting at Oracle User Groups
Youcan also present to the Oracle community at large through your localOracle User Group and at international conferences like IOUG-A Liveor Oracle Open World etc. There are many benefits. It disseminatespractical information directly to others, provides the presenter withan opportunity to develop presentations skills, promotes the personas knowledgeable in a particular area, and provides an opportunity tonetwork.
Conferenceorganizers put out a “call for papers” inviting interestedpersons to send in a 150 word abstract of a topic they would like topresent on some aspect of Oracle. If accepted, a full paper must bewritten and sent to organizers and a PowerPoint presentation must becreated and ready to present at the conference. Speakers whose papersare accepted for presentation at IOUG-A Live and Open World (or otherconferences) have their papers published in the conferenceproceedings and their conference fee waived, making it less expensivefor an organization to send someone.
9.5Internal Course Development
Youcan take presentations a step further and develop formal trainingcourses based on documentation and the accumulated expertise ofknowledgeable people within your organization. Course material can bedeveloped from previous white papers and presentations.  

10When Seeking Help
Becauseof the size and complexity of the Oracle product, everyone needsassistance from time to time, no matter what his or her experiencelevel. The following are some suggestions for those seeking help.  
10.1Try It Yourself First
Partof the coaching experience is for the person being helped todemonstrate and gradually improve their own ability to solveproblems. Although it is good to seek help, always make some attemptto solve the problem yourself first. People may be more willing tohelp if you have already made some effort to solve the problem. Forexample, if the problem is an error code, then look it up. Try someexperiments to duplicate the problem and search for other cases on aweb site like metalink. If nothing helps within a reasonable lengthof time, then seek help.
10.2Don’t Flounder
Whileit is important to at least make an attempt to solve things yourself,don’t sit around and flounder for a long time. Know when to seekhelp. This is can be a problem for those who are shy. Overcome thisby gradually building up a good working relationship with someonemore knowledge.
10.3Don’t Be Too Bold
Whileit is good to attempt to solve something yourself, don’t be toobold by forging ahead with something critical when you are not sure.Always err on the side of caution. Consult a more experience personfirst and get written approval for anything critical before goingahead with it. Always test a critical procedure that will forexample, delete or update production data, in development firstbefore running it in production. Make sure there is a backup thatenables an easy restore of the data should a problem arise. It isusually a lot easier to avoid a problem in the first place than tofix it later.
10.4Be Prepared
Justlike the “Boy Scouts” motto, “be prepared” to explain theproblem by providing documentation, hard copies of the code, errorreports, spooled files, sample data etc. that would help someonelocate a problem. When it is a specific error, always provide aprintout. It is virtually impossible for anyone like a DBA to solvean Oracle problem without at least seeing what the error code was andin what context. Be up front about who ran what,, when, where, whyand how. Make it as easy as possible for someone to help by providingbackground information and printouts.
10.5Spread Questions Around
Repeatedlyasking the same person over and over for help, whether by phone,e-mail or in person can be referred to as “response burden”. Thiscan turn people off who might otherwise be more than willing toassist on occasion. Avoid this situation by spreading questionsaround. Try asking different experts each time. People will be moreresponsive if they are called upon less frequently. It also buildsmore contacts and gives you a better idea who knows what.  Anotherway to reduce response burden is to draw up a list of questions to begiven to the same person at the same time rather than running back toask every question separately.
10.6E-mail Etiquette
Avoidingflooding a DBA with a lot of e-mails asking for help. They may bereceiving all kinds of e-mails and phone calls from other users atthe same time. As important as your problem might be, the informationmay get lost. Minimize the number of e-mails sent in a day to thesame person. Keep the requests short and concise, break up largeparagraphs, include error messages and simple examples, and use thespellchecker. Be precise in your description of a problem or request.Always be polite and positive. If the request is urgent, follow upwith a quick phone call just to confirm the e-mail was received andunderstood.
10.7Take Notes
Whensomeone explains something, always take notes. This avoids having toask the same person the same thing over and over. Procedures,commands and syntax that are copied down are recorded forever. Theycan be referred again in the future when the problem, the solutionand the helper are long forgotten. Notes can also be used as a basisfor writing more formal documentation if none exists. They also helpyou remember the information a lot better than otherwise, even ifnever referred to again. Make a note of error messages and how theywere fixed for future reference. Although it is now taken forgranted, corresponding by e-mail facilitates the recording ofinformation for later use. Commands can be cut and pasted into sourcecode or executed directly.
10.8Take Training
Ifthere are known gaps in your knowledge and skill set, be proactiveand volunteer for appropriate training. Enthusiastically take theneeded courses and then be ready to take on assignments that willprovide practical experience. Training combined with hands onexperience is essential. After training, if you are not yet workingon a project that requires the newly learned skills, create a smallbut interesting project of your own. Use it as an excuse for gettinghands on experience with the product that can be worked on atlunch-time or after hours.
10.9Be Patient
Bepatient with yourself and others. Don’t expect the helper to knoweverything. The Oracle and other products can be very complex. Thereare new features and versions coming out al the time. A potentialhelper may refer you to someone else more knowledgeable in aparticular area. Your questions could be about something so new thatothers have not had chance to use it yet.
Alsobe patient with yourself. “Rome wasn’t built in a day” so don’texpect to master everything overnight. Learning new tools can be likelearning musical instruments. It takes time and practice. Betenacious and don’t give up easily on a problem.  Continue toresearch the cause and solution to a problem and seek help until yourproblem is solved.
10.10Be Appreciative
Thankthe helper for their time, even if they were unable to directly solveyour problem. This will go along way in case you need their helpagain. If you are happy with their help, recommend them to others.
10.11Become an Expert Yourself
Onceyou have worked through a problem or learned a new tool, you nowbecome an expert in that area and are now able to share yourknowledge with others. Don’t think that you need years of Oracle orother experience just to be able to help somebody else. Make yourselfknown to others by offering to help where possible. Even a littleexperience can be very helpful to someone who is totally green.

11What Doesn’t Work
Often one can learn a lot byknowing what not to do. Here are some examples that should be avoidedwhen either helping or not helping others.
11.1Doing Everything
Don’tdo everything for the person being helped. This is can be a problemfor technical people who are now in a more managerial position. As amanager or project leader, there are always crunch situations whereyou need to get in and fix the code yourself, but in general youshould be encouraging your employees and others to do the work.
Notdelegating responsibility can limit the amount of experience anemployee can obtain and may lead to a crisis situation later. Forexample, a backup DBA who is never given a chance to be in command ofthe database and to test out the functions may not be able to run acritical backup and restore if the senior DBA is unavailable.
11.2Getting Drawn In
Another aspect of doingeverything is being pulled into situations with seemingly no end. Ifa protracted problem has occurred on another project that you are notresponsible for, then be careful not to be too drawn into it. Thereis a limit as to how much free time you can spend on some else’sproblem. In these cases, either refer the person to another expert ormake formal arrangements that fully compensate you for working onthat project.
11.3Laissez faire
Leavingemployees totally on their own may lead to either floundering orinappropriate solutions. Occasional check up on what they are doingand ask if they are encountering any situations that need yourassistance. Keep your door open and be friendly and approachable.Make others aware that you are available and willing to help ifneeded.
11.4Insisting on Helping
Theopposite of “laissez faire” is constantly asking if an employeeneeds help. When technical people are deeply focused, repeated andnon-productive interruptions can break their concentration making itmore difficult to get back to where they were. It can be like beingdeep in a mental mine shaft. Offer to help, but don’t keepinsisting on providing it unless asked for. If necessary, get theperson to explain what they are doing at a convenient predeterminedtime, not when they are in the middle of a problem.
11.5Ignoring requests
Ignoringrequests or being unfriendly and uncooperative when asked for helpdoes not create a good working environment. If you are “up to yourneck in alligators”, say so and arrange to meet the person at alater time. Be generous with your time. Rather than feelinginconvenienced, consider it an important learning opportunity foryou.
11.6Being Critical
Peoplemay show you designs, coding and procedures you don’t like. Ratherthan being too critical and reacting negatively, recognize the factthat, by coming to you, they have already made a positive steptowards improve things. The design or code they show you could besomething inherited from previous developers. Offer positivesuggestions and examples based on your own past experiences of whysomething worked or didn’t. Focus on the problem and not theperson.
Don’tthink that a question is too obvious, silly or ridiculous to answer.We all have gaps in our Oracle knowledge and experience. Somethingyou may think is easy could be completely unknown to someone else andis likely the reason they asked you for help in the first place.However, if the same questions are repeatedly asking by the sameperson, get them to take notes, refer them to someone else or postFrequently Asked Questions (FAQs) on an Intranet site.
11.7Osmosis
Thereis no substitute for providing a new employee with proper Oracletraining and hands on experience. A dozen years ago, I worked for anorganization that did not want to spend any more money on Oracletraining. As an alternative, my supervisor thought that if sat in andjust watched a consultant do some DBA work, I would somehow learn byosmosis all about Oracle and even how to copy a database from onemachine to another. It didn’t work. For someone to understand whatis going on, and to get up-to-speed with Oracle, it requires a properinvestment in training and hands on opportunities.

12Summary of Tips and TEchniques
Thefollowing is a recap of some basic tips and techniques for sharingour expertise with others.
12.1Motivation and Benefits

• Very        rewarding for both the helper and the person being helped
• Helps        to quickly solve the problem at hand
• Builds        technical skills of your team by getting them up-to-speed
• Keeps        project running successfully
• Develops        good relations with colleagues and clients
• Develops        coaching, research and presentation skills
• You        also learn new things about Oracle
• You        find out what you don’t know, but should know
  

12.2For Those Helping

• Build        up knowledge by properly documenting everything – user guides ,        developer guides, client specs
• Maintain        service requests (SRs) and consultation logs
• Post        documentation and SRs etc. on internal web site appropriately        accessible to accessible to developers and clients
• Hold        information sessions, structured walk throughs and peer reviews
• Make        others aware you are willing and able to help
• Be        friendly, patient and generous with your time
• Make        suggestions and provide examples
• Don’t        be too drawn in
• Work        through problems with experimentation
• Write        and present technical papers
• Refer        to someone else if unable to help directly
• Refer        to research material (manuals, textbooks, articles, web sites)
• Provide        proper training and hands on opportunities
• Record        problems and solutions found        
• Keep        a list of those helped for future reference        
  

12.3When Seeking Help

• Be        patient with the helper and yourself
• Try        to solve it yourself first
• Volunteer        for training and assignments
• Be        prepared with listing and printouts
• Spread        questions around        
• Ask        multiple questions at the same time
• Be        tenacious and don’t give up easily
• Recommend        experts to others
• Be        thankful for time spent
• Become        an expert yourself and then help others
  

13Conclusions
Knowledgetransfer and coaching are essential to build up knowledge andexpertise within an organization and to avoid critical knowledgegoing out the door when there are resource changes.
Everyoneis new to Oracle and other computer technology at one time oranother. As we continue to work with the product, we gain moreknowledge and experience. At the same time, there are always newpeople that could really benefit from our help and expertise. Sharingour expertise through coaching can be very rewarding both for one'sself and others.
Whileyou may be able to help solve a technical problem immediately forsomebody else, the main objective is to help others get up-to-speedmore quickly and to avoid costly pitfalls than otherwise if left ontheir own. As a manager or project leader, you will want to help youremployees develop their own analysis, design, programming and problemsolving skills. Since new people are often first to try new tools andfeatures, you will also learn a lot of new things that you might nototherwise, so your expertise will grow by sharing knowledge andexperience with others. By helping others, everybody wins.

14References
[1]Foster, B. and Seeker, K.R., Coaching for Peak EmployeePerformance, Jossey-Bass/Pfeiffer, San Francisco, CA, 1997
[2]Holmes, J.A., Seven Deadly SQL Traps and How to Avoid Them,1999 IOUG-A Live Conference Proceedings, Paper #434, Denver CO, Apr1999
[3]Holmes, J.A., Amazing SQL*Plus Tricks, 2000 IOUG-A LiveConference Proceedings, Paper #424, Anaheim CA, May 2000
[4]Holmes, J.A., Leveraging Oracle Performance Tuning Tools UsingSimple Mathematical Techniques, 2000 IOUG-A Live ConferenceProceedings, Paper #461, Anaheim CA, May 2000
[5]Holmes, J.A., Sharing Our Oracle Expertise: Coaching Tips &Techniques to Help Others, SELECT magazine (online version), Sept2001, IOUG-A
[6]Mink, O.G., Owen, K.Q. and Mink, B.P., Developing High-PerformancePeople; The Art of Coaching, Addison-Wesley Publishing Company,Inc., 1993
[7]Minor, M., Coaching for Development; Skills for Managers and TeamLeaders, Crisp Publishing Inc., Menlo Park, CA, 1995
[8]Stone, F.M., Coaching, Counseling & Mentoring, Amacom,1999
[9]Xebec, Coaching for Results, Computer Based Training Course,Xebec Interactive Learning Inc., 1997

15About the Author
JoeA. Holmes is a Project Leader for the Oracle Technology Centre withinthe Systems Development Division of Statistics Canada, Ottawa,Ontario. He has over 27 years of computer systems experience acrossfive Canadian Federal Government Departments including over 16 yearsworking with Oracle related systems. Joe can be reached atJoe.Holmes@statcan.ca.