Weekend Training

In the weekend preceding the annual FIRST conference in Montréal, Canada, a train-the-trainer training (TTT) was organised.

This two day training was given by Don Stikvoort, FIRST member since 1993 and Chair of the Open CSIRT Foundation, and Jaap van Ginkel, lecturer at the University of Amsterdam (UvA). Jaap and Don together have more than 50 years of experience as trainers - and have trained trainers for the past 5 years as well. The TTT does not aim at technical content, but rather at helping attendants to become better trainers and communicators.

In the first one-and-a-half day many aspects were covered, ranging from the sciences of learning and psychology all the way to very pragmatic aspects of how to organise and run a training. Various exercises were done together. for instance on the topic of "rapport" that is so essential for any communication to be successful. On Sunday afternoon, all students got to do a 7 minute training, concluded with feedback from the trainers and a fellow student. All of this was recorded and shared with the students. To see and hear yourself perform is often better learning than any feedback.

At next year's conference in Fukuoka, Japan, the trainers hope to share this inspirational TTT again!

Published on FIRST POST: Jul-Sep 2023