Providing Effective Training - Part 1

Are you an IT professional, or a “soft skills” training expert struggling to make end-user training an interactive, measurable and rewarding experience for you and the recipient of the training? Regardless of your background and expertise, the key to providing effective end-user training is to focus on the learner rather than just the technology.

When I first started providing end-user training, I received the traditional “Death by PowerPoint” approach to learning. I did not learn much from what I received. What taught me to use technology was designing training for others. The exercise of training development made me to think of creative ways to use the information that had been provided.

This experience forced me to ask the question, “If the best way to learn is to figure things out and teach others, why do so many end-user training programs spell out in boring detail each and every step that can be taken to use the technology?” My answer is that effective training does not have to provide all the answers, it just has to provide a framework by which the user can effectively figure out the answers and what works best for THEM.

I encourage you to take the following actions the next time you need to put together end-user training:

Determine what the user should be able to do

• Ask someone, preferably the potential recipients of the training, what they MUST be able to DO as a result of the training. If, for example, you are training on a financial application, it might be a good idea to focus on producing the 20% of the financial reports that the user will need to generate 80% of the time. Note – I know what you are thinking. You have to trust me that after the critical 20% of activities are learned in class (or by taking an e-learning module), the other 80% will be learned on the job and when needed.

Focus on what the user should be able to do

• Remember that it is much more important to be able to DO the critical things well when using technology than it is to be exposed to all the “bells and whistles”. Some exposure to rarely used features is alright if you are promoting the benefits of the tool, but the majority of training should be focused on user learning.

Present problems and have user produce measurable output

• Present problems and let the participants use the technology to solve the problems. Have the users produce a measurable output as a result of the session. For example, if you know that the most important thing for a salesperson to do when using a new customer relationship management package is to produce a customer list, have the user produce a report that shows the level of detail that is necessary for them see real value in the new technology.

In summary, the most important step in providing effective end-user training is to understand what the users must be able to DO as a result of the training, and then design the training that will provide a framework that will help the participant produce measured output.

In my next article on this topic, I will discuss more examples of end-user training measurement and how to report the results.

Bob Riess is the President of The Customer Connector and can be contacted through www.thecustomerconnector.com or at (859) 240-2550.