Along with the Meet the Griffin Series, we decided to introduce the Team Spotlight series to highlight how we truly are #bettertogether!
Better together is an undeniable part of our company’s culture where collaboration, collective inventiveness, and helping each other is a way of life.
For our very first Team Spotlight, we presented the MPL, or Message Protection Lab Team based in our Sofia office. Today, we are happy to feature our Axway University team, working together from all over the world.
We met with the Axway University team to learn more about this unique team with unique expertise and how they make magic.
The team: working all over the world to achieve a common goal
The Axway University team is in charge of enabling Axway’s partners, customers, and employees on our culture, products, and solutions.
The Axway University team is a true example of what collaboration means as they work with an internal network of over 30 experts who provide content and are spread through the organization.
Additionally, the team relies on 20 validated trainers within Axway and numerous Griffins that lend their voice to produce some of the on-demand eLearning courses.
The team also brings in different vendors, and some professional voice actors to supplement the internal teams.
“Axway University is a much larger team than the core Axway team of 15 dedicated to creating this learning community for the global Axway Ecosystem. It requires many more contributors to bring into life our courses.“
The team is organized into three domains:
- Curriculum architects (CA),
- Design and Development (D&D)
- Delivery team (DELI)
The Curriculum Architects (CA) are structured by domain such as API, MFT, B2B, Sales, and Professional Development. Each CA is the product owner of their learning products within their area of expertise.
The Design and Development team takes the raw content provided by the CA’s and transforms it into the assets needed to deliver a good learning experience.
The Delivery team has a slightly different day-to-day life as they can be present for the learners. They make sure the learner’s journey is smooth and efficient whether it’s virtually or on-site.
They also deal with all the administration of the Axway University operations from enrollments to budget management and more. Axway University is a well-oiled machine that works in a chain model in which every contributor is key for the next step.
The origin of the team
In the beginning, the training at Axway was organized in three separate groups: one for customers, one for partners, and one for employees.
For several years, these three groups co-existed. The idea to merge those three groups and create not only a new learning experience for everyone involved, but also build on the synergies that can exist between those three audiences gained ground progressively.
“Axway University 2.0 was born on January 1, 2020.”
Axway University 2.0 mission was — and still is — to grow the available content while improving the learning experience. To succeed, the team launched a new Learning Platform in April 2020 and grew the content from 123 titles/courses in April 2020 to nearly 2000 own titles + 8000 external vendor titles at the end of H1 2021.
Virtually
To bring alive the vision, “We aim to guide our partners, customers, and employees to achieve their goals by learning together.”
Axway University relies on many different people to gather different expertise and build demos about Axway’s products and their updates, to learn what is new and must be included in the product training, to understand the needs of each audience.
“Basically, we talk to everyone.”
The Axway University routine is well worked out as the organization is key in a 15 people core team. The internal real-time messaging system is the main tool to allow smooth communication.
Several channels are used depending on the need, such as the “Coffee corner” to say hello and share some fun or personal updates, or the “Daily Standup” to share the challenges of the day and who they might contact. Additionally, each domain has its channels: CA, D&D, and DELI.
Once a week, they make sure to have a meeting with the camera turned on to almost feel like they’re all sitting together in the same room!
The pandemic didn’t impact their routine as they were already working in a virtual and collaborative way from the start.
“What best defines the team is Virtual! None of us can work alone. The high level of interdependency is our curse and our blessing.”
The team: working globally to achieve a common goal
The 15 Griffins are part of the Axway University team which brings together not only their talent, but their culture, experiences, and let also say differences.
They almost cover every continent from Paris (France) to Phoenix (Arizona), looping in Bucharest (Romania), Dallas (Texas), even Clyde (North Carolina), Lansing (Michigan), and Zurich (Switzerland).
Many of them live in a country different from where they were born, they are all very curious and eager to discover the world and work with many different profiles. The team is also well balanced in terms of gender equity: eight women and seven men.
Jokes are part of their daily life within the “Coffee Corner” channel. Gary posts his “puny Mondays,” a series of puns that all the team expects to read every Monday morning.
On Friday, Mauro takes over with the Funny French Friday, sharing funny pictures to have the team learn more French as it’s Axway’s heritage and the mother tongue of a good part of the team. Valerie organized virtual board games afternoon and of course, they can count on all the teams’ reactions.
And on a more personal note…
Now that we know what Axway University does in their day-to-day job, we wanted to learn more about who the different team members are in their personal lives.
Zach loves camping with his son and his scout troop. They sleep in tents or cabins in the woods of Michigan and go hiking. Marc is a fan of biking. He likes to bike to work (every day) and bike for fun the rest of the time. When at home, he bikes on his home trainer, and surprisingly, his three kids and wife don’t like to bike.
Valerie was born and raised on the French island of Réunion, home to one of the most active volcanoes in the world. She is passionate about good food, photography, and traveling. Outside of work, Don spends time cycling, cooking, and podcasting about MINI Coopers. In his free time, Ian explores the hiking trails in the Smoky and Blue Ridge Mountains, plays Pokémon Go (level 43), RuneScape (level 138), or reads a book from his large collection of Science Fiction books. Crystal loves to travel and explore new destinations so she can improve her navigation skills. For Aurelia, “Life is a good teacher. It will repeat the same lesson until you understand it.”
Gary and his family reside in Prosper, Texas, just north of Dallas. He is a Marvel, DC, Lord of the Rings, and Western film nerd. For Damien, optimists and pessimists equally contribute to society; the first invented the plane, the second, the parachute. Mauro’s office has its own nickname, L’auberge espagnole; during the meetings he speaks in French or English, and, if you are in a meeting with him, you can hear his wife speaking in German in the background.
Sometimes you can hear him speak Spanish or try a few words of Portuguese. Mauro loves different countries, cultures, and languages. He has worked in 20+ countries and visited 76. And the final word goes to Alexandru, who joined Axway a few months ago and was the last person to join the AU team. He loves watching movies, reading books (fiction, non-fiction, everything) and collecting watches and fountain pens.
“As a recent university graduate, it’s difficult to know what to expect when you start your professional life. I’m proud to say that Axway, and the wonderful Axway University team, has exceeded my expectations for learning and contributing in the most positive way – everyone here embraces open communication and proper collaboration as drivers for progress. These are, I believe, elements that are compatible with both personal and collective growth. I’m grateful and enthusiastic about working at Axway University, and I feel that my curiosity and enthusiasm are matched by a motivating and enriching experience.”
If you are interested, we have an open position in our team for a Learning Management Super Administrator in Phoenix, Paris or Bucharest.
Thank you, Axway University team for your time and involvement in making your vision a reality and having all customers, partners, and employees trained and set up for success.
Read more Life at Axway stories today.