✈️ Ground School, an experiment at work in peer-based learning and development.

Note: This are my thoughts and opinions and not meant to reflect those of my employer, Microsoft.

These days there are many many resources for people to learn about new technologies. It seems like the last three years have largely been about learning what the technology is capable of and then it changes and you need to re-learn.

However, I found for myself and for many of my colleagues that it was difficult to stay ahead of industry and product changes and as a consequence I came up with the idea of ✈️ Ground School. I am sharing my journey, how I built out the program here with you and perhaps it will inspire you to do something similar at your company. ✈️ Ground School is for internal Microsoft employees only at this point, and I will not be sharing the specifics of what we learn or discuss (as that is confidential) but there are some learnings in here you could use to start your own program.

Why I started ✈️ Ground School

The idea for ✈️ Ground School was born out of a desire to foster continuous learning and development within our team. The idea came to me during a casual conversation with colleagues about the rapid pace of technological advancements and the need for us to stay ahead of the curve. I realized that while we had access to numerous resources, there was a gap in structured, peer-driven learning experiences that could be both educational and engaging.

The great thing about working at Microsoft is that we have a culture of continuous learning that is not just encouraged but is indoctrinated. So about six months ago I set about to create a monthly session where we would bring in a guest speaker to discuss a topic related to Copilot or AI, share their knowledge and foster a learn-it-all culture amongst my peers.

Six months later we've conducted a lot of sessions, the community has grown to over 500 people regularly attending Ground School and we have a newletter that goes out to close to 1000 people.

🎤 Getting Started: Finding Topics and Speakers

One of the first steps in setting up Ground School was identifying potential speakers. While now many came in through referrals, initially I reached out to colleagues who were product builders at Microsoft and had demonstrated expertise in various areas and were passionate about sharing their knowledge. I also looked beyond our immediate team, tapping into Microsoft's vast network of professionals. By leveraging internal forums and my professional network, I was able to connect with experts who were excited to participate. I found that people wanted to hear from both leaders in the company as well as from the people on the ground making the decisions about the products. When I reach out to speakers I tell them about the audience they will be speaking too, and I ensure they know its internal and they can be sure that the content will remain inside of the company. I find that this gives them a little more latitude to share content that would otherwise have to be scrubbed and prepped for an external audience.

📚 Curating topics to drive engagement and learning

Selecting ✈️ Ground School topics is a collaborative effort that I take on with the speaker. I generally get a prep meeting together with the speaker and discuss the topic and how we want to approach it. Sometimes the original idea that spurred the idea for a session morphs dramatically at this point. It is important to remain flexible and understand what areas my colleagues were most interested in addressing. The goal was to cover a broad range of subjects, from technical skills and emerging technologies but also to demystify technologies that were rapidly evolving. This approach ensured that the content was relevant and valuable to everyone involved. Sometimes it makes sense to bring in a couple of speakers that can help each other present, since often times we use Teams and the QnA tool for webinars, its helpful to have another subject matter expert on the session whom can answer questions that come in.

📝 Delivering the right mix of content and live demos

Preparing content for Ground School sessions involved a mix of slides and live demos. I worked closely with our speakers to develop engaging presentations and demos that show examples. We incorporate multimedia elements, such as videos and interactive code demos, to make the sessions more dynamic. Additionally, we created supplementary materials, like reading lists and resource guides, to help participants dive deeper into the topics.

🎓 The ✈️ Sessions

✈️ Ground School 60 minute sessions were designed to be interactive. We encourage questions, discussions, and knowledge sharing among participants. Each session typically begins with me providing a brief introduction of the topic and speaker, followed by the main presentation, about 30 minutes of content and demos, and concluded with a Q&A segment. We also record and transcribe the sessions for those who couldn't attend live, ensuring that the knowledge was accessible to everyone. We let Microsoft 365 Copilot facilitate the meeting, keep track of time remaining in the meeting, questions that went unanswered etc...

Once the session is over, I will share out the notes, the PowerPoint deck and a video recording of the session. A lot of time the live sessions take time during the late night for many of my colleagues around the world and they want to be able to access the content later.

🌟 Learnings from building ✈️ Ground School

Along the way I've picked up several valuable lessons and continue to refine how I run the sessions. I get feedback from the attendees, speakers and my management team.

• Driving engagement in the content and sessions is key: Keeping the sessions interactive and encouraging participation made a significant difference in the overall experience. When we don't have enough time to answer everyone's questions we follow up later in the meeting chat. All of the sessions are recorded and transcribed for asynch viewing. I also send out a monthly newsletter that recaps the content from the preceding month and gives a sneak peek at what is coming up.

• Keep expanding to diverse perspectives and topics: Including speakers from different backgrounds and areas of expertise enriched the learning experience. I've been adding speakers that you might not normally thought would have content to share and don't always get a podium or forum.

• Feedback loops drive repeat engagement: Regular feedback from participants helped us refine the format and content of the sessions. I send a survey at the end of the meeting giving people a chance to let us know how we did, any improvements or topics they would like to see in future sessions.

🚀 If you are so inspired to start your own ✈️ Ground School

Starting Ground School at Microsoft has been an rewarding experience for me and a way I stay current with this ever-changing world of technology. It has not only enhanced our team's skills and knowledge but also fostered a culture of continuous learning and collaboration.

Tools I use to run ✈️ Ground School include:

• Loop Workspaces to collaborate with speakers on topics and content

• PowerPoint to generate the content for the sessions

• Teams Meetings to host the sessions and Copilot to recap the sessions

• QnA Tool in the meeting to track all questions and ensure timely responses

• Outlook Newsletters - for my monthly newsletter to our community

Lastly I created a Declarative Agent that is trained on the SharePoint repository where all of the final content is stored. I recently shared this with the ✈️ Ground School community so they could use it to test their knowledge of the content from the sessions and ask questions.

While this does take some time and effort on my part I feel like its worth it.

In closing, thanks for reading and if you are in a similar situation where your peers feel that they could benefit from implementing similar initiatives in their companies maybe give this a shot!. By creating opportunities for peer-driven learning, you can empower your teams to grow and succeed in an ever-evolving landscape.

Feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn if you'd like to learn more about ✈️ Ground School or share your own experiences with similar initiatives.