1Improving Technical Knowledge Through Study GroupsSoftware Development ’97 East, Class 5210Conference: Sept 29 - Oct 3, 1997Washington Convention CenterWashington, DCNathan WardRaytheon E-Systems Falls ChurchThe Study Group ConceptThe study group (SG) concept is a relatively simple one that offers significant benefitsfor you, your peers and your company as a whole. The idea is to form a group of six to tenpeople, pick a book, define a reading schedule and meet once a week to discuss what you’veread. Study groups provide enough structure to help you read and digest books and otherinformation better than you would on your own. Yet, SGs don’t require as much time orinvolve as much pressure as a formal class. It’s a way of fostering your own professionaldevelopment and keep up with new technology. As Warren Keuffel points out, you can’talways count on your company to provide the training that you want or need:“Engineers should recognize that professional and team development is bynature, and often by organizational default, an activity for which individualengineers need to take responsibility. If you’re the kind of engineer whoexpects your company to train you with whatever skills you require for well-rounded professional growth, you may be unpleasantly surprised when thetime comes to shop those skills around to other shops.”[1]Your company inherently benefits from software practitioners improving their skillsthrough study groups. However, an ongoing study group program is required for yourcompany to realize significant short-term and long-term benefits. A study group program issimilar to a training program. It provides an infrastructure that makes it possible for a largenumber of people to participate in study groups on a regular basis. When widespreadacceptance of study groups occurs, the following benefits are likely to result:• improved morale• better skills applied on projects• technology insertion and dissemination• an environment where continuous learning and improvement are the norm.In addition, the infrastructure that a study group program provides makes it easier for anindividual to form a study group on the topic of his or her choice. This is due in part to peerpressure that results from hearing about all the reading and learning that other softwarepractitioners are doing. A study group program also encourages management support. OnceSD’97 East Class 52102upper and middle management see that software practitioners are taking the initiative tocontinuously learn and improve, the company is likely to support study groups in ways thatmakes study groups more cost-effective for the participants. Support may include funding forbooks, providing lunch for study group meetings or allowing study groups to meet oncompany time.This has been the case at Raytheon E-Systems Falls Church Operations (REFC). Overtwo hundred software practitioners (roughly half of all software practitioners) regularlyparticipate in study groups and have done so since 1994. Figure 1 summarizes our experiencein terms of the number of participants per round of study groups. The term round of studygroups is used because we typically start several study groups at the same time. Table 1 liststhe topics that we’ve studied and how many people participated in study groups on each since1994. The company supports study groups by providing lunch for study group meetings andpaying for the books. The books are company property, but the study group members can usebooks as their own as long as they are with the company. The meeting time and individualreading are done on the participant’s own time. The company spent $19,400 on books and$23,700 for study group lunches in 1996. However, the biggest cost of study groups is theparticipant's time. Software practitioners at REFC invested approximately 8,800 hours oftheir own time on study groups in 1996.10501001502002503003501 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9study group roundparticipants# of participantsFigure 1. Growth of Study GroupsWhile many people have contributed to establishing a study group program at REFC, Iintroduced study groups and led the development of an ongoing study group program.Someone like you will have to do the same in your organization in order to establish a studygroup program. This paper describes our experience with study groups for the purpose of 1 This estimate assumes that 75% of the number of people who joined study groups actually participated andthat each participant spent 2 hours per week reading and one hour per week in a study group meeting.SD’97 East Class 52103helping you consider how study groups might work for you. The first section describes thesteps that we went through to develop a study group program and how our study groupprogram currently works. While every organization is different, our experience can serve as atemplate for getting started. The next section provides lessons learned about how to run astudy group. The last section describes lessons learned about how to introduce study groupsand lead the development of a study group program.Table 1. Study Group TopicsTopic Number of ParticipantsHTML 181Digital Signal Processing 139Java 130TCP/IP 125Software Engineering 80Object-Oriented Design 74C++ 61World Wide Web 61Ham Operator’s License 57Unix Administration 56Firewalls 48Personal Development 44Unix Internals 40Perl 32Electronics 26C Programming 23Network Administration 22CORBA 22Database Design 20IDMS Programming 18Linux 16ATM 15Intronet 12ISO 9000 10Software Testing & Metrics 9CODARTS 9UML 7Software Reuse 7TCL & Tk 7Verilog Language 7Software Requirements 6User Interface Design 5SD’97 East Class 52104STUDY GROUPS AT REFCThe origin of study groupsI learned about study groups through two forums on Compuserve -- the CASE forumand the SDFORUM forum. Compuserve forums are similar to Internet newsgroups in thatpeople post messages and hold discussions online. Both forums regularly hold online studygroups. An online study group is like an in-person study group except that participantscommunicate by posting messages in the forum. I participated in several online study groupsbefore introducing study groups at REFC. However, I didn’t consider introducing studygroups at REFC until I read an article entitled “Pull Together!” by Warren Keuffel and RichCohen [2]. It discusses the benefits of running study groups in a business environment andprovides some guidelines for getting started.
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