SUMMARY OF PROBLEM
In the post-9/11 environment, Los Angeles World Airport (LAWA) had an immediate need to keep its security standards current. The plan for upgrade included upgrading the servers from NT4.0 to Windows Server 2003 and their desktops, all 1800, from NT4.0 to Windows XP. No amount of "down time" due to migration, migration issues/errors, or inability to support the new environment and legacy applications was tolerable.

With a short training cycle desired and the need to prevent slowing of workflow due to employees out of the office for training, a unique learning plan and schedule was provided.

LEARNING FRAMEWORK
QuickStart's success in delivering for our client the highest-quality learning solution can be greatly attributed to our knowledge transfer strategy… the QuickStart Learning Framework. By providing assessments, targeted learning plans, validation/measurement, and ongoing support, the QuickStart Learning Framework helped provide a detailed and highly effective learning solution. QuickStart was able to deliver the right learning plans aimed at addressing the specific organizational and staff needs, which ultimately reduced risk, ensuring success.

SUMMARY OF SOLUTION
In order to successfully accomplish this, the client first needed to assess the skill levels of all server team members as well as the support personnel. QuickStart implemented the proven QuickStart assessment process. The assessment resulted in defined skill gaps of the organization and individuals. The remedy for the defined skill gaps included Standard public Microsoft Learning courses; customized courses, hands-on-labs, seminars, MeLL and Microsoft Press. QuickStart was able to work with the client to deploy the learning solution within a unique matrix to accommodate both individuals that couldn't be out of the office at the same time and the limit to number of people that can be in training for each department and division. QuickStart also provided Microsoft premier eLearning, MeLL and Books 24x7 online reference for on-going, just-in-time training and as an on-the-job resource.

ASSESS
From the skill gaps and management interviews, QuickStart was able to identify the priorities of training as well as the constraints and logistics necessary to provide training with minimal impact on the support and maintenance of the client's infrastructure. A custom learning plan was created for LAWA based on the assessment results, desired method of training and budget. The client's direct training costs were reduced significantly by using the QuickStart assessment.

PLAN
Based on the results of the assessment, QuickStart Intelligence created a custom learning plan that included public and private, custom and standard instructor-led training, Microsoft eLearning Library (MeLL) product, Microsoft hands-on labs, Microsoft Press material, seminars and customized Business Desktop Deployment classes. With MeLL being part of the Airport's Enterprise Agreement, QuickStart was able to recommend the proper content to help them get the most out of their training budget.

LEARN
The training solution was provided for 51 server and support professionals. The non-server team members (Help Desk, managers, DBAs, etc.) attended two one-day seminars, Windows 2003 overview seminar and Active Directory overview seminar. Microsoft's two-day Business Desktop Deployment class was customized to include the airport's deployment tool. The remainder of the training consisted of public offerings (some dates were added to the public course schedule to accommodate the airport's deployment schedule) in Windows XP (2261 and 2262), Windows Server 2003 (2274, 2279), Exchange 2003 (2400), SQL Server 2003 (2071, 2072, 2073, 2591), IIS 6.0 (2373), VB.NET (2559), C# .NET (2124), ADO.NET (2389), ASP.NET (2310Q Exclusive course with MegaLab). MeLL client and MeLL server products were also utilized.

VALIDATE
Several customized and QuickStart exclusive courses were used in the program, including 2310Q Developing Microsoft ASP.NET Web Applications with QuickStart MegaLab. The course ends with an intense QuickStart MegaLab where the students are challenged to build an application that accesses a public web service, programmatically create and populate a database table, display metadata extracted from DataSets, and perform transacted database updates. These challenges require the student to apply the knowledge acquired in the first days of training and demonstrate measurable results.

APPLY
1800 desktops were upgraded to Windows XP. While the number of people training and number hours of training are significant, the big picture will prove to be the true measure of reach. A more secure and reliable network running applications available to the public will raise satisfaction and trust among the clients of LAWA.

IMPLEMENTATION HIGHLIGHT
As an added benefit of the assessment process, the Airport was able to utilize the data from the assessment process to assist them in the ISO 9000 process. ISO 9000 has become an international reference for quality management requirements in business-to-business dealings, and the assessment results gave them one completed piece of the process.