A couple of years ago I was having this conversation with my new co-workers – all software engineers – about the cost of a college carreer in the US and also, not as dramatic amounts but certainly expensive anyways in CR.
On top of that we need to add update courseware, specific certifications and things like that. What an expensive endeavor to gain and keep our professional skills!
Then I remembered something I learned ~10 years ago at Intel. One director there was sharing in a session with us the composition of skills develoment, today known as the OSF ratio (On-the-job, Social, Formal ratio)
This ratio explains that 70% of the effort in development a particulart set of skills comes from on-the-job experience; that is, actually doing the work; then 20% comes from social interactions such as teamwork, mentorship and coaching; while 10% comes from formal education and courseware, including indeed university, actualization courses and certifications.
I believe these numbers are correct, though I also think they are not isolated from one another. This is, they overlap a lot. For instance, universities may include coaching and teamwork and hands-on experiences; while also, doing the work may involve quite a good deal of coaching, mentorship, teamwork and even courseware to support any missing piece of knowledge requried at the field.
There is a trending way of thinking that diminishes the importance of college preparation in life, in lieu of “self-thought” / “self-made” professional development.
I’m afraid that’s quite an over-simplification.
While universities are heavily being questioned by online learning platforms – and no wonder – also those same online learning platforms must question themselves about the fact that they sit in the tiny 10% of the equation, and they do not cover the other 20% of mentorship and social interaction and the 70% of hands-on experience.
I recently started a course in one of these online learning platforms and the instructor (the video) literally asks the students to join an specific social media platform channel and look out for mentorship opportunities (receiving and giving mentorship); the course is structured with some hands-on activity in mind. This to me is a good sign that these platforms are doing something – limited still – to grow their participation in the OSF ratio.
Thanks for reading up to here! At this point I want to ask you to question youself:
- How much are you taking the OSF ratio in your learning and development interactions?
- How can you better incoroporate it?
- Do you have a mentor or a coach?
- Are you mentoring others?
- Where do you get you foundational knowledge from?
- What % of your learning efforts are hands-on experiences?
- Are those hands-on experience real life things? or just simulations?
When it comes to skills development we are here on a common quest: transform ourselves in to that next version of ourselves that can do more; can achieve more, and can bring new value to the world.
Remember: preparing to teach and mentor others is a great way to learn and develop yourself.
