The full cycle of creating a mobile application is the result of the coordinated work of many employees… ideally. In practice, each feature has a chance to get into a production whirlpool, where developers swear at a complicated design, and testers are hysterical, not understanding how so many bugs could be left behind.
In order to establish communication between departments and make all development stages friendly, we launched a series of corporate projects under the common name “Nashkodim”. Its first part was an internal iOS course for company employees who do not work with code. iOS developer MobileUp told us about it
Who needs it and why?
At first glance, these skills may seem redundant. But we didn’t set out to turn every employee into a potential developer.
The initial tasks were much more prosaic:
Tell about the technical side of the process even to those who consider themselves a complete humanitarian;
Show how layouts turn into code, how developers typeset and what requirements they impose on design;
Explain where bugs come from and how they can be prevented;
To give an idea of real commercial projects, their scale and complexity;
Make it so that all employees speak the same language or at least understand what the developers are talking about when professional terms are used.
Our target audience was primarily designers and QA. But after the announcement of the launch of the course, it turned out that project managers, HR, and even our editor wanted to participate in it (but could not because of the large number of applicants – ed.). The demand was so high that we decided to collect two streams.
Over the course of a month, the participants of the course were expected to have 8 lessons dedicated to getting to know Xcode, layout of interfaces, interaction with Figma, and the basics of development. At the end, everyone had a mini-portfolio of basic iOS applications made by their own hands.
We didn’t have a goal to “load” the guys with OOP principles, SOLID’s and the right codestyle. It was much more important to create that very magical feeling when you yourself created and launched the first application in your life! Yes, and installed it on your device to brag to your friends! This approach turned out to be a great stimulus, and motivated participants to dive into and delve into aspects of development.
Cost and risks
Speaking about the economics of the project, it is worth considering several factors. The first is the development and preparation of the program. Ready-made courses are not suitable for this format, because sooner or later they begin to delve into complex concepts and terminology. Our task was to go “breadth”, not “deep”.
Due to the busyness of colleagues, it will not be possible to ensure one hundred percent attendance at each lesson. Therefore, in addition to a cheat sheet for a mentor, you need to think about those who want to catch up on a missed lesson: provide a record of each lesson and provide them with a brief text content with screenshots and archives of finished projects. It took about a week of working time.
Process and results
Step by step, mastering the iOS development, the participants in the course at first were surprised at the simplicity of creating applications, and then came across new challenges and gradually changed their opinion.
The opportunity was very delighted to at least plunge into the development and understand where what is taken from. Now the pain of developers with a mile for different screens is felt sharper. The course helped to close more into the mechanisms (modal windows, that’s where you get bugs from you!).
Daria Kurkina, QA engineer
The abundance of code can easily frighten an unprepared person, so we tried to observe the balance between the visual mile in the Interface Builder’s and the implementation of interactivity/functionality. They tried to supplement each example with an explanation of how this would affect the work of other departments, complicate or simplify their life.
To be a little, the developer was interesting and useful. Fully created models are not the end, but only the beginning. The beginning, when the developer can twitch or not twist his eyes. Therefore, once again I remind myself – everything that is done should be done efficiently, thoughtfully and beautifully.
Artyom Tyutin, UI/UX designer
The benefits of the participation of employees are not from the Central African Republic (where designers and testers included) it seemed not the most obvious, but in practice they were one of the first to find pluses from our course. Moreover, even people from outside could evaluate this.
I often present on technical interviews and if earlier some things that are discussed during the conversation were abramadabra for me, now I know what exactly the interviewer wants to hear. I can also understand, says the candidate in the case or not. I remember my surprise when I looked at the chat of iOS developers, where they discussed some kind of development situation. And oh gods! I understood everything! She praised herself that she decided to go on the course!
ARYUNA Ivanova, HR manager
It was not difficult to reach the end of the course. But to write and protect your final application is a task that requires great attention and effort. As a result, about 35% of students coped with this task. Each of them has mastered the following technology glass:
Interface Builder and Auto Layout;
Basic types of data;
The basics of SWIFT are variables, constants, functions and classes;
Navigation using Segue;
Moers on figma models;
Using third -party API.
And some even decided not to stop there.
For me, it was an Achivka to collect all our lessons in Supeepap. The guys who have already tried to cope, understood that I did something interesting and cool. And those who did not understand how it was built simply rejoiced for me, that I made efforts and did something myself. The project gave me an understanding that the area that I chose is perfect for me.
Mikhail Slipchenko, producer
The “graduation” application of the course was the mood indicator that allows you to evaluate its condition on a stobal scale, publish these data and find out the average assessment among all users. Many participants approached this task especially creatively.