Metaflex

Reskilling oneself works well for contractors. It works well if these contractors are experienced developers that move onto new projects often. However, when the staff in question are not experienced or advanced enough or when these developers are primarily maintaining existing systems or building upon an existing bedrock of IT systems. Reskilling themselves becomes a far harder option. Simply being told that you have to learn new technology and techniques is not enough in these situations.

If the goal is to maintain an up-to-date workforce of embedded contractors then a more specific approach is required. One such approach is to mandate the use of a specific technology or method for a particular module or system extension. This forces the developer to research and learn the unknown technology and technique. This is the particular method I am using to mentor an inexperienced developer and is showing definite results.