Writing a training program, your input pls

W

Wood474

Hey all ET users,

I have been asked by a company to start designing and writing a comprehensive training program for futures traders. This will not be like a 2 day course or similar, it's a full on training program, start to finish including mentoring etc. I have over 18 years experience in the business from trading, managing and risk. Where to start on such a big project!!!!

Obviously the course will cover all the obvious things such as fundamentals, technicals, how the market works, the particpants etc, trade and money management etc etc.

My idea is that there will be a general training course about the markets and the business of trading, to then be split into modules covering different product classes. So, there will be a module on equity indices, currencies, commodities, fixed income and the various spreads etc

The trainees will the then be backed and nurtured into hopefully great traders.

Off the top of my head I'm guessing it will take approximately 4 months or so to put this together.

What I'm asking of anyone who reads this is to throw in some ideas/areas of training that you feel are important, often overlooked, things you have perhaps been trained in that were of value (or those that you weren't and wish you had earlier) and just general things that you feel should be included in a comprehensive training course.

Couple of words/pointers is all I need to work from. Appreciate all replies I get.
 
Generally, I like to get paid for my work, and I most certainly am going to be paid for doing yours. :)

There is a general feeling of discontent with vendors on ET, especially those who train, or offer a signal or advisory service.
Don't be surpised if your request and this thread gets a bit of heat from the rest of ET.

My suggestion is that you get clear on who your audience is, and write the course for them.
 
Quote from Wood474:

Hey all ET users,

I have been asked by a company to start designing and writing a comprehensive training program for futures traders. This will not be like a 2 day course or similar, it's a full on training program, start to finish including mentoring etc. I have over 18 years experience in the business from trading, managing and risk. Where to start on such a big project!!!!

Obviously the course will cover all the obvious things such as fundamentals, technicals, how the market works, the particpants etc, trade and money management etc etc.

My idea is that there will be a general training course about the markets and the business of trading, to then be split into modules covering different product classes. So, there will be a module on equity indices, currencies, commodities, fixed income and the various spreads etc

The trainees will the then be backed and nurtured into hopefully great traders.

Off the top of my head I'm guessing it will take approximately 4 months or so to put this together.

What I'm asking of anyone who reads this is to throw in some ideas/areas of training that you feel are important, often overlooked, things you have perhaps been trained in that were of value (or those that you weren't and wish you had earlier) and just general things that you feel should be included in a comprehensive training course.

Couple of words/pointers is all I need to work from. Appreciate all replies I get.
More...

There are dozens of companies/sites/publications that have already done this. Why are you reinventing the wheel?
 
I'm not reinventing the wheel. My company is in the process of huge expansion and we are opening many new offices around the globe recruiting, training and backing high calibre potential traders. Rather than pay for all recruits to take external courses (as we currently do) it makes more sense to devise our own. This is not an advisory service or a course to be sold to anyone. Purely inhouse training.

If you owned a franchise of take-away baguette lunch shops, it would be cheaper to make your own baguettes rather than pay someone else to make and deliver them. Rubbish analogy I know, but you get the idea.
 
Quote from jonnyy40:

Well I assume you send all recruits to one particular training outfit?Why not go there yourself and just plagiarise?
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It's stealing, and when you do get caught, and you will, you will lose your lawsuit and it will cost quite a bit of money.

I recently read where Anthony Robbins lost a lawsuit over the concept of a "meter drop" to Wade Cook, it cost him around 500k. Robbins admitted that he talked with Cook on the phone once, and Read his book and that was enough evidence for Cook to win.
 
It looks like you have some of the choices already made for you.

The company philosophy and policies are givens. They will be used to filter the global recruits and determine all the translations you will be doing.

The company's platforms and the series of ATS's they will be using dictate the module rundowns you will be using.

This four part bundle (philosophy, policy, platforms and ATS's) will allow you to quickly spin out a series of text outlines, lesson plans, model trading videos and support materials and level to level testing for QA of your supervisors, instructors and recruits.

Also, I feel three ancillary topical skill set augmentors are necessary (not optional): business and trading plan design and maintainance.; iterative refinement of skills emphasizing effectiveness and efficiency; and a total immersion multimedia training experience on how the mind may be built.

For your bundle I recommend working through the knowledge and skills by building from level to level and a minimum of six levels would be required. For any market trading module I would recommend at least 10 common topics per lap around any of the six levels.

For any market, its ATS and the platform combo. I would really emphasize the autonomy of each of the three before you try to do the integration. Otherwise you get mud.

You describe a parallel type expansion on a global basis and the corporation is gong in house from a prior out of house experience. This stuff would be great baseline information as a reference on how much better what you think you are going to do is going to be.

For the evaluations, I would focus on how much translation of what is substantive regarding philosophy, poloicy. ATS's and pplatforms is going on. The reason is that if any translation is going on in lieu of transference, then going to the next level is going to have deletorious facets that will not make a lot of things even possible by the 4 level onward.

Recruits can either be proven or potential material. The process will be shorter and deeper with those who have potential over those who have experience. The idea of a boot camp is the most appealing that I have heard so far. for any level to be gotten across I have found that at least a month experience of real actual conditions is required for that level to have a chance to get across.

Where I you I would have a heart to heart with whomever wrote the spec you think you are going to work to. It is not frightening exactly; it is more that it has nothing to do with any reality in the financial industry except for a sales orientation where nothing matters but closing on the person signing up. You may be preparing a sales piece for a company that wants to go first and then be subsumed on a buyout through a M&A.
 
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