9 weeks, 24 topics, 13 teachers, 4 shiny new consultants.
It’s been about two months since the first-ever LevelUp data management training program started at Loihde Advisory. Our graduation day was on the 2nd of June, and all of the four participants made it until the very end. Whippii! It’s been an exciting, yet quite tiring ride, and I’m excited to carry this newfound expertise with me to future projects.
Overall, the training was quite intense. Some days I could feel my brain aching from information overload. There was a truckload to learn, even for those participants who had a background in data (in my case over six years in Master Data). Many of the study subjects were quite cryptic to me in the beginning, but I was happy to eventually discover that data management, as wide a topic as it is, it’s not exactly brain surgery.
My favourite part of the whole 2-month stretch was… well, many things. For starters, our teachers, who were all Loihde Advisory consultants themselves, were brilliant. The amount of knowledge and wisdom they could provide was outstanding. You could always ask if you didn’t know something, and they would answer, no matter how stupid the questions were.
The training methods varied, and that was a welcome change from slideshow routines. The theory studies were a significant part of the program, but most weeks we also completed hands-on practice tasks that connected the theory to the real world. I especially enjoyed the days when we were doing those exercises, e.g., drawing data models, analysing data sets, and studying solution architecture pictures. Playing the data platform word explanation game was fun too (probably because my team won; cheers, Kati!).
However, if I had to point out the ultimate high point of the whole program, that would be the making and presentation of the thesis. After many long and information-filled days swimming deep in the ocean of data management, it was an exciting challenge to put all of that newly acquired knowledge to good use and create a material that is useful for the whole company. It was fulfilling to see how the world has changed. Now you are able to see outside the box, past the borders of your own experiences in data and in business.
The purpose of the LevelUp training program is to educate the participants in all aspects of data management and to offer the necessary tools and skills to be able to jump in on customer assignments and confidently act as a competent adviser. I think it did just that. Some qualities, of course, come with time and experience. Nevertheless, LevelUp has prepared all of us to be able to work as consultants — and to be the solutionists whose expertise our customers can count on.
10/10, would participate again.
