By Sean Hanna, Founder & Director of Nemstar
March 3, 2026
In the real world, systems don’t fail neatly. Logs are messy, alerts are noisy, and the pressure is always on. That’s exactly why good technical training shouldn’t feel like theory.
Over the past few months we delivered a fully customised, on‑site technical programme for the team at Johnson Controls—designed around the reality of their day job, not a generic syllabus. It ran one day per week over eight weeks, which sounds simple, but that pacing mattered: it gave the team time to practise between sessions, come back with real questions, and build confidence in a way a single “big week” course rarely achieves.
Yes, they wanted to improve service metrics and incident handling. But there was another objective that often gets ignored: building the team dynamic and helping people enjoy being back together in the office.
So we designed the learning experience to support both.
Most technical courses teach tools one-by-one. This programme focused on how everything connects—because that’s how real incidents unfold. Linux, SQL Server, and network traffic weren’t treated as separate subjects. Learners saw how a fault can begin in one layer, ripple into another, and be traced end-to-end with evidence.
But the biggest change was in the lab design.
To achieve the “stronger team” objective, we built LAN exercises that could only be solved in pairs. The tasks were intentionally structured so one person could not complete them alone—delegates had to communicate, split responsibilities, compare findings, and validate each other’s conclusions. That created genuine collaboration (not forced “teamwork slides”).
This wasn’t off-the-shelf content. The customer operates in the Smart Buildings / OT / physical security space, supporting systems based on their own unique hardware and software.
So our labs and materials were built around that reality—simulating the kinds of faults and investigative paths their service desk sees in production. In other words: the learning looked and felt like their job.
Across the eight weeks, we focused heavily on practical troubleshooting and evidence-led thinking:
By the end, the shift wasn’t “they knew more commands”. It was that people stopped asking “Which button do I press?” and started asking “What is the system telling me, and what’s the evidence?”
The delegates also worked towards and achieved the Nemstar Technical Support Engineer (NTSE) certification as part of the journey—giving the business a consistent benchmark for capability, not just attendance
Sean Hanna
Founder & Director
Sean Hanna founded Nemstar in 2009, leveraging 20+ years of cybersecurity expertise to deliver business-focused technical training. As EC Council’s Global Security Trainer of the Year, he has trained thousands globally, including at Microsoft, GCHQ, and the U.S. Navy. Sean led Microsoft Exchange 2000’s technical training launch and helps organizations strengthen their cybersecurity defenses.