Software Academy is a competence development centre where OP employees can deepen their technological expertise during company time. But what does it mean in practice? And what is studying at the academy like? 

What is the OP Software Academy and what happens there?

Software Academy is OP’s technological competence development community, a sort of school within OP. At the academy, OP employees from all over the company get together to study different topics with the support of coworkers. The academy started as a small pilot test, during which we found that studying together and meeting face-to-face to discuss a topic support learning in many ways. Little by little, we began expanding the academy, and three years later it has grown into a diverse and community-oriented centre of learning.

The academy’s courses are based on self-study supported by regular meetings in small groups. An integral part of the academy are mentors who help students gain a deeper understanding of topics. For example, many courses hold weekly study group meetings to review the week’s topic and discuss its meaning in the context of each employee’s line of work and OP as a whole.

How did you end up as the Software Academy’s rector and what is your role?

I became the academy’s rector sort of by accident about a year ago, when OP was looking for a new person to run the academy. I thought this was a great example of the variety of careers at OP – it’s possible to end up in a role you didn’t even know existed before!

My role as a Way of Working Specialist also involves other responsibilities besides the Software Academy, but I am actively involved in running the academy’s day-to-day operations together with my coworkers. I am also responsible for the academy’s finances and licence purchases as well as general development.

What topics are studied at the academy?

Our course offering is extensive and constantly changing and developing with the academy. In designing our course offering, we want to listen to our students’ wishes and take them into account as it’s important to us that the academy meets the needs of its teachers and students. At the moment, for example, we offer courses on a wide range of topics from data to DevOps and cloud to mobile development. Our new additions are courses on customer value generation and quality control. Study materials come in several formats, from physical and digital books to videos.

Most courses last about one to three months. To make finding suitable courses easier, students are told what previous skills they should have before signing up for a course. Even so, I encourage everyone to try out any course that seems interesting to them, as studying with coworkers is relaxed and there are no stupid questions. I personally signed up for a DevOps course knowing practically nothing about the topic beforehand. Thanks to support from mentors and the small group, diving into the theme didn’t feel too challenging. In fact, I was so engrossed that I ended up taking an advanced course on the topic! 

How would you describe the academy’s culture?

I see the culture at the academy as fairly unique: at its core are collaboration and team spirit, as students get together to learn new and celebrate each other’s successes. The 70:20:10 model used at OP supports a strong culture of continuous improvement and collaborative learning, and the academy’s courses are an excellent way to make the most out of the time set aside for personal competence development.

The academy also offers participants a great opportunity to get to know coworkers better, and collaborating and sharing knowledge at work becomes even easier after taking courses together. A recurring theme in the feedback we receive is satisfaction about the fact that this kind of competence development is possible during company time. It warms my heart to see how many students return for new courses time and again. It really feels that the academy is rewarding for everyone involved!

What do you see as the best thing about the academy?

Taking part in the academy’s activities is voluntary for students, mentors and content creators. Despite this, we’ve never had a shortage of motivated people who want to be involved in the academy and find it so important that they’re ready to offer their free time as a mentor, for example. The fact that OP’s employees want to share their knowledge and genuinely support others is pretty unique in my opinion.

I’m also proud of the speed at which our operations have expanded in three years. From a single course, we’ve grown into a fully fledged community with something new going on all the time. The academy’s activities are not limited to courses either: just recently, we had a lecturer from Sweden visit us to hold a morning seminar on AWS, for example. Our plan is to host more such events in the future.

What does the future of the academy look like?

The future looks bright for the academy. We’re constantly getting positive feedback from students, and interest in our courses is high. For my part, I want to help keep up the positive spirit and motivation at the academy and expand our course offering to benefit even more OP employees. It’s been nice to see that we’ve already had people attending our courses from all business segments. Going forward, I want to ensure that our courses serve as many employees as possible.

For those wondering about the level of commitment required for the courses, I want to remind them that this autumn we’ll begin offering shorter intensive courses on specific topics. They are easy to fit into a tight schedule if the longer courses seem too time-consuming.