Technical Brief Series

Comment: Many of the postings in this blog are of a technical nature but do not go too deep.  I have compiled these postings into this series for quick referencing purposes. Most of these technical briefs were part of a overarching effort to quickly train staff on specific subject matter.  I hope that you them useful.

Short Read Archives
by
JT Bogden, PMP

Several years ago while in a leadership role running a operationalized telecommunication cell, I was challenged with a variety of knowledge levels within the staff as well as high staff turn over. Every quarter I was transitioning about 25% of the staff and observing 100% turnover annually. Reason was the cell was a interim duty in which staff got a check-in-the-box before moving on to their primary duty. Also up to 35% of the staff was augments that were assigned during crisis events.  I needed a method to bring the staff up to speed and continually increase knowledge.  After looking around, I drew upon operations management practices and my own educational experiences looking to McGraw-Hill's SRA program. SRA is the acronym for Science Research Associates, Inc but also has become known as Short Read Archive. 

The SRA program was simple. SRA card series were created for self-paced learning with a frame work of benchmarks or milestones.  The front side was a short read and the back side of the card was exercises and a quiz. Forms were completed for the quiz and turned into the instructor for grading. Some SRA card sets were self-graded and benchmark testing was graded by the instructor.  I choose to employ the short read approach and coupled that to weekly scheduled training.  Each staff member had a standard training plan and would draw the short briefs based on the schedule for them.  The goal was to cross-train everyone under a training management program. 

The original short reads were drafted by the staff then reviewed, smoothed, and published to the set.  The idea was not to teach deep detail but create increasing familiarity with the systems and technologies in use. In all there were about 50 short reads with a cyclic monthly review of 4 of the short reads. 

In preparing these for post, I updated a few and consolidated some cards. Most likely I will not post all 50 short reads, just the more interesting ones.  Most discuss the technology on a high level.

1. Very Small Aperture Terminal (VSAT)
2. Voice Over Internetworking Protocol (VOIP) 
3. Wireless Network Vulnerabilities
4. Data Communications
5. Radio Broadcast
6. Neural Agents
7. Computer Attacks: TCP/IP Security
8. Computer Attacks: Probing Ports
9. Computer Attacks: Viruses
10. Computer Attacks: Hackers

I will continue to add to this list over time.