We had 20+ developers. Zero formal training. And a protocol barely documented outside of GitHub issues and a handful of engineering blogs. But we needed them MCP-ready — fast.
Model Context Protocol (MCP) is becoming the silent backbone for how LLMs interact with apps. It’s not flashy. But it’s essential. It’s how AI systems know what your software can do — and how to trigger those actions safely and contextually. When we committed to integrating MCP internally, we realized there was no off-the-shelf training material, no “learn it in 3 days” guide. So we made our own way.
We didn’t run formal sessions. We skipped the decks and LMS dashboards. Here’s what we did instead:
– Used real apps, not toy examples
– Paired senior devs with juniors to transfer context faster
– Wrote internal Notion pages in plain language to log everything we figured out
– Held weekly “demo jams” to build, break, test, and improve
– Encouraged “fail-loud” debugging in Teams, so every learning became a team asset
This wasn’t a classroom. It was collaborative survival. And it worked.
In the first week, the team grounded themselves in the essentials — what MCP is, what it’s not, and how LLMs discover and execute functions. They dove into OpenAPI 3.1, explored JSON Schema, and rethought API design with agents in mind. By the second and third weeks, they were writing real connectors, experimenting with intent-based flows, and seeing where traditional design habits needed to be unlearned.
By the end of the month, we weren’t just MCP-literate — we were shipping. Three internal tools went live with MCP capabilities. Juniors could independently contribute. Our knowledge base was rich, simple, and usable. We had not only learned MCP — we had debugged it, built with it, and started shaping how it fits our product thinking. If you're planning to do something similar, here’s what we’d say: use real projects, not simulations. Let learning happen around actual work. Pair intentionally. Capture everything. And don’t be afraid to let people get messy with it. That’s where the growth lives.
And if you’re looking to integrate MCP into your own systems
— or you need a team that’s already gone through that curve — we’d love to help.
