SalamanderSoft is becoming a Learning Organisation

We have spent the last year rebuilding how our staff learn and share knowledge, and the impact is already being felt across our team and our customers. 

SalamanderSoft has a vision to become a learning organisation, one where knowledge doesn’t sit in the heads of individual team members or scattered documents, but is captured, shared and constantly improved by everyone. 

This is the story of how – and why it matters just as much to our customers as it does to us.

What is a Learning Organisation? 

A “learning organisation” is a simple idea with a big impact: everybody has something to learn, and everybody has something to teach. 

The term was popularised by Peter Senge’s The Fifth Discipline (1990) and describes a company or institution that continuously builds its capacity to learn, adapt and improve, treating learning not as a one-off training event, but as something embedded in how the organisation works day to day. 

Education and knowledge are two powerful things. This belief is a huge part of the reason why we have continued to work in the education sector for almost two decades. 

Why is Salamander becoming a Learning Organisation? 

Salamander is a fully remote company, and we wouldn’t have it any other way.  

But, working remotely does remove the chance for the “watercooler chat”, the quick “how do you do this?” and looking over someone’s shoulder as you watch and learn. 

Instead, we must be intentional and proactive when it comes to sharing knowledge and nurturing a collaborative culture. 

Meet Alan Treloar – The mind behind it all 

Every good transformation needs someone to champion it, and at Salamander that’s Alan Treloar, our Technical Training & Knowledge Coordinator. 

Alan’s background and experience made him perfect for the role.  

He worked in IT Solutions for the Department for Education, coached rugby with the RFU, and held various IT roles at schools and multi academy trusts.  

That strong combination first showed itself when Alan was our Installation Coordinator, bringing a small team together to agree a single best-practice way of working instead of everyone doing things their own way.  

It worked so well that the thinking behind it outgrew installations entirely, and a new, company-wide role was born. 

And his passion for this new project is evident:  

“Everybody has something to learn, and everybody has something to teach. It doesn’t matter whether you joined last month or you’ve been here ten years, your experience and perspective are worth sharing.” 

How we’re achieving our vision 

Rather than one person trying to document everything (an impossible task that would be out of date before it was finished), we brought together a team of subject matter experts. Each gets protected time every week dedicated to the role. 

“It was important to get subject matter experts who still worked in their usual role, because then they are working with the technology every day,” Alan explains. 

“The roles were open to anyone in the company to apply – the only way it would work is if the subject matter experts were passionate about their role and got enrichment from sharing their knowledge.” 

All this knowledge lives in one central hub: LiKeM (Learning Knowledge Management) – a single curated source of truth.  

“It’s built to continuously improve – anyone can flag something that needs updating, so it’s now a collaboration across the whole team, not just the experts.” 

And because nobody wants to read a 20-page manual to find one answer, we built OWL (Organised Wisdom and Learning), an AI assistant that lives right inside Microsoft Teams.  

“Anybody can ask OWL questions. We wanted to make it as easy as possible to get information, whatever your learning style is,” he continues.  

The impact  

Since launch, LiKeM and OWL have become part of the everyday rhythm at Salamander. Documentation that used to sit scattered and out of date has been rebuilt from the ground up. New starters have a genuine “one place to start.”  

There are now easy ways for anyone to contribute a quick nugget of knowledge or share what they know in an informal session, the culture of sharing has spread well beyond the original team of experts. 

And the numbers speak for themselves: 

Since OWL launched in January 2026, it has answered over 5,000 questions. 

If you calculate this at just 10 minutes saved per question, that’s a whole month of time handed back to the team. 

But, for the more in-depth questions – the kind that would once have meant tracking down exactly the right subject matter expert and waiting for them to be free – we estimate that’s the equivalent of 104 days! That’s 104 days our team isn’t spending searching, waiting or repeating work, and time they are spending getting better at what they do and supporting our customers. 

All of this contributes to: 

• Faster onboarding of our new starters 

• More consistent customer support 

• Faster resolution of customer queries 

Future vision: 

The same thinking that’s transforming how we work internally is now extending outward. We’re rolling out versions of OWL for our customers to ask questions directly, anonymously – with an early version already helping schools and trusts navigate one of the busiest points in the calendar: academic year rollover. 

It’s the same promise we’ve always made, just delivered in a new way: saving time and stress for the people who rely on us, because the more time we save, and the more knowledge we share, the better our team gets at supporting the schools, colleges and trusts who count on us every day. 

Our Managing Director, Gavan Vettese-Wilson, adds: 

“We often talk about helping schools make better use of technology. Becoming a learning organisation is about holding ourselves to the same standard. Because when knowledge is shared rather than siloed, everyone benefits: our people, our company and ultimately the schools, colleges and trusts we serve.” 

If you would like to find out more about working at SalamanderSoft, see our Careers page. 

Meanwhile, if you’re a school or trust, here’s how we can help you: