This question was asked during a webinar in October 2020:
What other trainings would you recommend for someone with background in IT basic AIS 021 basic Digital Cartography and certificate in eAIP without AIP interface/content management...... We have a huge task ahead, to set a funtional charting and FPD unit?
I think starting out is always difficult it doesn't matter if you have one or twenty persons to train and prepare for the new tasks, in particular this question refers to Aeronautical Charting and Instrument Flight Procedure Design (IFPD) and I want to address as well as I can without knowing the inner particulars.
First you will need to have identified the key staff that will be part of this unit, I see that in many places they are putting the IFPD together with AIM and that is OK but we need to remember both are different activities with slightly different requirements.
Once you have identified the staff that will be part of this new unit you will require to do some training. What is some of the training required? I will break down it down a bit but just to be clear this is not a comprehensive list
Common
Ab-Initio AIS/AIM Course
Refresher Course (if your last AIS/AIM course was a long time ago)
GIS knowledge
Geodesy
Basic Aeronautical Charting
Aeronautical Charting
Advanced Aeronautical Charting
Introduction to PANS OPS
Software specific training
Instrument Flight Procedure Design
Basic PANS OPS Course (Conventional including ILS)
PBN Course (includes minimum LNAV, BaroVNAV)
Software specific training
Depending on the situation you may add SBAS, RNP AR and other more specialized training
Once trained and this may be the most difficult part in many parts of the world is the On-the-Job Training phase (OJT) since many lack senior staff that are able to transmit the knowledge to new staff coming in. Now with online tools and video conferences that we are kind of getting used to we can remove this access barrier to have OJT by qualified professionals worldwide. But OJT is in the workplace! Yes, you will still be doing your activities, according to your regulations and your own environment but instead of having someone travel to be with you for quite an amount of time all of these activities are performed and assessed remotely. Of course you may have blended activities where at the middle or at the end of the OJT phase an on-site visit is done to confirm the requirements are met
During the OJT phase we might work on establishing the QMS and all the required documentation that may be lacking specially if this is a fresh new unit being started from the ground up, the end goal is to have a functional unit ready to take on the task ahead.
After all of this? Well I usually think having some mentoring/coaching never hurts so allocating some budget for this specially when requests come to handle items that are too complex for the level of skills developed until now may now allow to perform an adequate job. The end goal is the knowledge transfer.
Hope this helps a bit.