Ready, Set. Learn!

Perhaps the most painful thing you can ask anyone to do is to document – a program, a process, training materials.

And we’ll find any excuse NOT to do it.

Well, we’re piloting a program at work these days which seems to be working pretty well. We’ve stopped writing training documentation in many cases.

And we’ve started creating instructional videos.

With a free downloaded program called Jing, creating short instructional videos is quick, easy and fun. Jing captures video from any portion of your computer screen, and along with audio narration, you create flash videos in real time. Once completed, the videos can be stored on your PC or server or (for free) at Jing’s site.

We accumulate, meta tag and store all our training videos on our SharePoint intranet.

We’re building up quite a library. And avoiding that painful exercise of creating volumes of documentation that no one ever reads.

The second thing we’re doing is certifying our users on computer functions, before granting permanent rights. Recently we put some staff through certification on the customer and contact merge function on Goldmine CRM software. Only after each of our users had successfully performed data cleanup (on some of their own accounts), were additional rights granted.

And of course, we documented the process with Jing.

The Battle of O.D. vs. A.D.D.

Many would argue that the I.T. function became more effective after the development of Steering Teams – regular participation by company leaders discussing and debating technology policies and systems development.

The more involved senior leaders are with an initiative, department or function the more commitment, understanding and the sharper the strategic focus. It’s all about alignment, expectations and buy-in. And regular exposure to the I.T. function helps foster that.

So why don’t we do the same thing with Organizational Development? For many HR departments, the O.D. team is comprised of hybrid “skunkworks” HR people who don’t administer policy, explain benefits or manage compensation..

They’re out there in the lines of business, working as missionaries, trying to develop momentum behind the principles of succession planning, employee development and nurturing great employee performance.

But these plans seem to be developed within the bowels of HR – then sold to various constituencies within the organization. They act (and are treated) as service providers rather than partners.

Unfortunately for us all, OD efforts are often times seen as the “project of the week” instead of an ongoing (and critical) business process.

It’s a battle of O.D. vs. corporate A.D.D. (attention deficit disorder).

From an I.T. perspective, I think we could benefit from a much higher degree of collaboration between I.T. and the O.D. folks. After all, achieving the benefits of systems deployment is almost entirely dependent on how well our employees understand our processes and use the systems. The O.D. team can make a big difference in system acceptance, change management, training and individual performance improvement.

But we aren’t at the table.

Because there IS no table.

I’d rather dovetail I.T. user training and performance improvement within a corporate framework/strategy rather than do it independently. We aren’t great communicators. We aren’t great trainers. We could use your help to improve our performance.

Perhaps we could begin with an O.D. steering team?

Until then, let’s have lunch.

Training TV

For some time now, I’ve been lobbying anyone who will listen, that video instruction is the way of the future.

While we in I.T. consider the job done, as soon as the user manual is written (or whatever training documentation you currently use), we’re usually wrong.

The done is done NOT when the materials are completed, but when the training is completed (and understood). And we can play a role in that effort.

The guys at 37signals have a post today on their blog detailing how they create their short instructional (promotional) videos.

While they typically use Macs and Mac based programs (then transition to a PC native program called Camtasia for pans and zooms), those of us who spend most of our time in the PC world can simply use Camtasia (or if your needs are very basic – Cam Studio, which is free.)

Your homework is to create a short video using whatever tools you wish. Once you discover how simple and effective it can be, you’ll never write another user manual again. And you’ll have an effective training product that gets used.

The Apathy War

Seth Godin has a great blog this morning about the Two kinds of “Don’t Know“. While Seth points out these observations as a warning to Marketers, his blog should serve as a beacon to I.T. Project Leaders as well.

My team faced the two kinds of “Don’t Know” first hand, when trying to educate and train employees on a new business system.

I had been through the process before, during a Global SAP system implementation for a prior company. For my new company, to help get the message out and to help our employees get trained, (to address “Don’t Know”) our team did a LOT of stuff.

1. Our team provided monthly project updates via email.
2. We posted project information on a blog.
3. We created a spot on the corporate intranet for project updates.
4. We provided detailed process transaction documentation.
5. We provided “cheat sheets” featuring transaction shortcuts.
6. We provided online web based (self-paced) training, available 24×7.
7. We provided online integrated help within the application.
8. We provided a tool free phone number for any questions.
9. We pre-trained our Helpdesk to answer questions and to support our employees.
10. We built and provided access to a duplicate, test environment, where employees could actually logon and practice their transactions (available months before our “go live”).
11. We held classroom system transaction training.
12. We held Process overview training.
13. We built a train the trainer model, to develop local experts, who could be relied upon as a “first line of defense”.
14. We created process user groups so our employees could rely on their community for support (and we led the monthly meetings).

None of it mattered, because many of the employees, fell into the second “Don’t Know” group.

They didn’t care.

And no amount of communications, training materials or practice opportunities can overcome apathy.

In retrospect, our time would have been much better spent “engaging employees”, measuring their committment, motivation and project understanding, rather than focusing on training/communications tools and expecting employees to listen and learn.

To defeat “Don’t Care”, you need strong corporate committment. You need leadership. You need to win “hearts and minds”.

We didn’t need another training brochure. We were fighting an Apathy War.