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Scott Lavoie: Best Practices and Pain Points of SharePoint Training
1. Responsible for SharePoint training, but you're not a trainer? The best practices and pain points of implementing training. Track – Special Interest Scott Lavoie Senior Software Training Consultant
2. Agenda Introduction - Scott Lavoie Needs analysis Instructional design E-learning Pilot training Helpdesk Rollout logistics Communications plan Sustainment plan
3. Introduction: Scott Lavoie 12 years experience in software training roll-outs. 5 years of work experience in the following ECM software: Content/Document Management Corporate Governance Records Management Digital Asset Management Built the training departments from the ground up at 2 ECM software companies. Senior Software Training Specialist based in Toronto, Canada Email: scott.lavoie@rogers.com
4. Needs Analysis Determine user roles: End User, 2-days Power User, 2-days Project Management Teams, ½ - day Helpdesk, 4 ½ - days System Administration (depends on IT dept) Designer (intro), 1-day InfoPath (intro), 1-day
5. Needs Analysis Interview stakeholders to determine workflow Try to incorporate workflow and metadata examples and exercises Leverage business analysis documentation into the training materials Determine learning objectives, which will drive your curriculum.
6. Needs Analysis Very common mistake: DON’T FORGET TO INCLUDE END USERS. Including end users in the training process always improves user adoption.
7. Training strategy Write a formal training strategy to organize the rollout. A formal strategy is necessary to inform management what is needed for a successful rollout. If you cannot get the resources and budget you need, then you’ve covered your responsibility with recommendations. The strategy makes it more difficult for others to blame you for training mistakes.
8. Instructional Design Training guide with hands-on exercises For example, 2-day end user SharePoint classroom-based training guide approximately 150 pages Navigation handout with SharePoint definitions Quick reference guides Job-aids, for example, workflows Non-specific step-by-step functionality quick guide E-learning
9. Instructional Design NO TIME!!!: If a 150 page training guide cannot be produced due to lack of skills set and/or resourcing, then create an exercise booklet to give learners. An exercise booklet will appear “light”, but better than nothing. Additional handouts will help beef up the training documentation.
10. Instructional Design How much should I customize training documentation for different users? Writing courses for different users is time consuming, however, sending people to a 2-day course when only 20% of the material applies to their job will not work.
11. E-learning E-learning is the most successful when used for support or sustainment purposes (my opinion). Many employees think of training as a reward and strongly prefer classroom-based training, which typically means learner resistance to e-learning. To achieve compliance tie e-learning completion to HR annual performance reviews. E-learning: “if you build it, they will come” does NOT work for e-learning, just Kevin Costner.
12. E-learning E-learning requires a lot of promotion to be adopted and successful for users. You must have a communications plan to accompany your e-learning that consists of more than an email notification. You have to walk people through e-learning modules, so they become familiar with it and ultimately use it. A classroom based role out is a perfect opportunity to introduce e-learning A formal walkthrough of the training portal, including e-learning should be part of your class.
13. E-learning: Simulation software Create short simulation modules for functionality (asynchronous). Popular simulation software: Adobe Captivate 5.0, US$799 TechSmith Camtasia, US$299 Step-by-step PDFs beside simulation link icons for old school users who prefer paper like me. Create a clickable Table of Contents format for simulation modules.
14. E-learning: Online and live The Pros and Cons of live online training Popular synchronous (real-time) software: Cisco WebEx Adobe Connect Live Meeting Pros It’s cheap to execute Can train learners in remote offices Works well for Q & A sessions Can demo any software Can have more than 12 learners in a classroom
15. E-learning Cons Passive learning No way of knowing if people are paying attention. People are easily distracted by coworkers and work commitments when participating at their desks. Request that they go to a meeting room with their laptop or a computer class, if possible. Learning software typically requires hand-on work to retain it. Getting users to complete exercises is difficult. Try to incorporate exercises, which need to be sent ahead of time so users can print them. Tip: Check-in often to monitor their exercise progress by doing a roll call.
16. Pilot Training Extremely valuable exercise, highly recommended. Select cross-section of users for each course based on job function and computer suaveness. Ask managers to recommend employees who will contribute to the pilot. Give students a pad of paper to make notes during the pilot.
17. Pilot Training Allow students to ask questions, but find a balance between asking questions and waiting till the end to provide feedback. Be clear to set expectations that this is a pilot, not training and “we appreciate your help in developing the training”. After training, have a feedback session to consolidate the comments.
18. Pilot Training Have someone take notes while you lead the class through the lessons learned afterwards. A small gift for students is a nice gesture.
19. Helpdesk Training Helpdesk to receive the following training: End User, 2-days Power User, 2-days Project Management Teams, ½-day Helpdesk training is typically tricky for logistic reasons, since someone has to be on helpdesk during office hours. Helpdesk are typically under trained and expected to be the experts.
20. Helpdesk Input Helpdesk is KEY to user feedback. Have helpdesk produce a top ten list of most asked SharePoint questions by users. Attend Helpdesk departmental meetings to compile top ten list as booking your own meeting time with helpdesk is typically difficult. Send most common questions from top 10 as communication links to a FAQs knowledge base web page. Using a knowledge base page allows you to build a comprehensive FAQs list instead of scattered emails that quickly become buried.
21. Helpdesk Input Must have buy-in from management to leverage helpdesk knowledge. You are asking helpdesk for help, this is in your best interest, not the helpdesk…really. Don’t expect enthusiasm to help you. Feedback should also be used to improve training materials and delivery.
22. Registration and Rollout How are you going to register users? Are you going to use a Learning Management System (LMS)? If not, can IT help with a simple homegrown online registration web page? You can use an Excel spreadsheet in SharePoint to allow students to self-register.
23. Registration and Rollout Question: In large organizations if your users don’t register for classes, what do you do? Assign a choice of classes to a department and have the manager responsible for having employees sign up within a specific period of time.
24. Registration and Rollout Plan on a 20% absent rate of classes. Plan for a second sweep of training to catch people who missed due to sickness and vacation. Trainers for the rollout should not train beyond 3 days/week.
25. Registration and Rollout Do not train management first. Work the kinks out of training first before bringing in management for training. If management is dissatisfied with the software that attitude can trickle down to employees and can affect user adoption. New York Publishing example
26. Communications Plan Company newsletter – have a dedicated training section Tips, tricks and shortcuts Announcements as training date approaches, not just emails, but signs in the cafeteria, water cooler, etc. Handout pamphlets in the morning or lunch time. Information sessions about the training such as lunch and learns and online information sessions. Ask to show up at departmental meetings to give a brief presentation on SharePoint and the training…highly recommended!!! Road show
27. Sustainment Plan Create a Sustainment Plan to show management. Sustainment involves ongoing support after Go Live. It also involves supporting users during the rollout, which is often completely neglected.
28. DOES THIS SOUND FAMILIAR: Attended training, waited 2 months for Go Live, forgot everything. Sustainment Plan
29. Sustainment Plan What you can do outside of the classroom, during rollout: Walkabouts after training Work closely with helpdesk to identify trouble spots early in the training. Monitoring user’s activity for compliance, in other words, are they using SharePoint Providing a training portal for learners Have helpdesk direct users to portal to find answers. BTW, users will not like this, but do it anyways…tough love works.
30. Sustainment Plan Someone has to own the ongoing support and learning of SharePoint. Helpdesk is not enough. Create a training portal: Short (2-5 minutes) e-learning software simulation modules A longer introduction module is good to introduce new employees to the concepts of SharePoint New employees should have their own site to learn SharePoint. They are a different audience than existing employees. Wikis Knowledge base web page Discussion board
31. Sustainment Plan Keep your training portal current or people will not trust it and ignore it. If you can’t get your organization to contribute to a discussion board, it’s probably a communications problem. If you still can’t get people to contribute, then take it off. Contests work! Ask your Microsoft sales guy for free stuff. Publish contest winners in company newsletter to promote user involvement. Periodic training for new hires and people moving into new positions. A second round of training for stragglers/vacation/sick is always needed, but don’t announce it until after the initial rollout.
