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Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2007 07:18:07 -0700 (PDT)
From: Peter Barnett <regdba@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: DBA tasks by experience
To: sfaroult@roughsea.com, gkatteri@fastmail.fm,
  Rumpi Gravenstein <rgravens@gmail.com>
Cc: oracledba.williams@gmail.com, oracle-l <oracle-l@freelists.org>
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We have trained a number of DBAs with varying degrees
of success.  A couple of thoughts based on this
experience.

a.  Make sure that the trainee really knows what s/he
is getting into.  Many people are not prepared for the
fact that weekends, nights and holidays are prime time
for DBAs.  On call or being perpetually lashed to your
cell phone are just part of the job.  To most on this
list this is just the job.  To a trainee it can come
as a real shock.  Three trainees did not survive this
shock.

b.  Degrees and certifications do not equal a
successful trainee.  Scratch two more with Master's
degrees who found the day-to-day stress of production
support and the demands of developers to be too much. 


c.  Do not end the training/mentor program too soon. 
Most will be able to pick up the routine work in
fairly short order.  Usually, they are on call within
six months of starting their training.  Make sure that
they have someone specifically assigned to back them
up when they are on call.  Also, when that first
production recovery call comes to them, have a plan to
make them successful - even if it is two years after
they are 'trained'.

d.  Notes without context do no one any good - make
sure that they take good notes and then make sure that
they read and use the notes that they have taken. 
When you tell someone for the third time exactly the
same thing and they diligently write it down you know
that they are not using the notes that they have taken
or do not understand either the question, the answer,
or both. Start asking them questions.  

e.  Patience, patience, patience....
It took me five years to become a decent DBA, ten
years to become really good.  Doubtless, there are
many people on this list smarter than me but expecting
a trainee to be fully ready for everything in less
time is probably not realistic.  


--- Stephane Faroult <sfaroult@roughsea.com> wrote:


---------------------------------
I fully subscribe to this. There are tons of things
you do when you know well a topic that are not laid
out very explicitly in docs, you don't waste your time
on many details, and a beginner who watches an old
hand operating learns must faster than by reading docs
or trying things alone; especially when he asks
questions and forces the old hand to explain things
done more or less intuitively in the light of
experience; even the tutor benefits from this type of
question. When I started on Oracle (technical support,
good grief) I was lucky enough to share the office  of
someone who was 15 years my senior, had a lot of
experience on databases (not necessarily relational
ones because that was long ago)  and explained to me a
lot of things that any amount of RTFMing wouldn'd have
taught me as fast, even if the volume of Oracle docs
was far, far less daunting then than it is now. After
all, whenever you go to a course and are happy with an
instructor, it's usually because  his or her teaching
style is more like tutoring than lecturing - it's
always the voice of experience that appeals.
   I have bought some time ago "Teach what you know"
by Steve Trautman, there are very interesting things
in it about organizing tutoring; no magical recipe,
but very good guidelines. There is a chapter in it
about learning styles which is probably the one I
liked best (free ad :-)).

HTH

Stephane Faroult

 
On Tue Sep 25  3:56 , "Rumpi Gravenstein"  sent:

In all things training the time tested apprentice
method should not be overlooked or under-appreciated. 
I've found that what works best is beginner working
with expert, (think watered down extreme programming
--http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extreme_programming)
with both working together on the same projects and
tasks -- expert guiding the work, parceling out
sub-tasks, and reviewing everything that is done.  As
the novice comes up to speed there's less and less
supervision.  While this is an intensive approach,
when done faithfully you should come close to cloning
the best around while avoiding those bad habits that
can develop with guesses that seem to work but don't
account for all that is possible.

To recap, don't put beginners in an environment by
themselves, where they can, mind you this is the best
of circumstances -- relearn all the hard lessons by
themselves.  Better, pair them up with your best
preferably someone with a gentle hand, and watch what
develops.

On 9/24/07, GovindanK <gkatteri@fastmail.fm> wrote:   
              
How about putting beginners to Development db's to
start with and then move on to QC / UAT etc? That
would give you some breathing time to arrive at the
criticality.

Govindan

  
-- 
Rumpi Gravenstein
--http://www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l


Pete Barnett


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