Five Reasons your Training Fails
Have you ever been involved in a go-live situation for a new process, software or change and said to yourself, ‘How did we get here?’ Things are not working like you envisioned them and everyone just seems to be clueless. However, you are having a hard time wrapping your head around this though because they did get trained…
That is just it…and this is where the problem lies…don’t just assume since training happened, it was appropriate, retained and a high quality delivery. Put quite simply, the box was checked. However, you have the answer as to whether or not it was effective by what happens after the users are expected to start doing it.
Most folks don’t go back and reassess what happen and make adjustments going forward. I am going to save you some time. Below is a collection of all training lessons learned that I have compiled from fifteen plus years in the industry. My hope is that these will save you some time and help you realign anything you got in process or coming up next.
Think about these five things when working on your training plan…
- Preparation
Planning for the training is just as important as delivering the training. However, many try to throw something together at the last minute. They don’t think about logistics involved, i.e. booking a room, equipment needed, making copies, etc. Trainers are usually running around at the last minute, and then often don’t get everything completed because training is always an afterthought. They carry-on with the training regardless of whether it is ready or not. Users feel this…this affects how they absorb the content. When the trainer is organized, relaxed and ready OR if your trainer is ‘winging it’; this will resonate with your audience and affect them in either a good or bad way. Take this seriously.
2. Participation
How many times have you showed up to train a course and you are supposed to have ten people and only six show up? This happens to us all, but this is also one of the reasons so many struggle when it comes time to do it. If folks don’t show up, we don’t hold them accountable, we don’t make training participation a pre-requisite to move on. We don’t make them complete the training before getting a user ID to the software application. The training is no good if people don’t take it. Consider assessing your participation before your go-live and articulate a consequence if it is not adhered to.
3. Time
Training is always, always underestimated. We very rarely leave enough time in the project to train the end users in the appropriate manner. Training is a process and it takes time. You cannot rush it. You have ‘X’ amount of content to cover and you cannot shorten that. The process is the process. Be realistic to yourself and the users and work backwards. Go from your go-live date and work backwards scheduling your training with realistic course times, allowing time for make-up sessions, exercise session and Q&A sessions as well. When you have everything scheduled, this should dictate to you when you should start training. Respect this date and do your best to adhere to it.
4. Lack of Documentation
We have all been in those training classes where the instructor does not hand out anything. So you are relying on the blank notebook paper in front of you and your pen. Here you are required to write as much as you possibly can down. This hurts for two reasons 1.) You are focusing on writing down what is being said and you are not ‘hearing and absorbing’ what is being said. 2.) You have nothing to refer back to after the training class when you are working the process in a live scenario.
Effort needs to be made to provide users any means of documentation that makes sense for the process; flowcharts, cheat sheets, work instructions, placards, laminated cards, etc. The more reference material you can provide them, they make notes on this during the training. This allows them to ponder the content, ask questions more quickly and make more realistic notes while the content is fresh in their head.
5. Not understanding documentation
Explaining the documentation that you hand out is an obvious mistake that many make. Folks don’t think about telling the users how you have laid out the documentation. More times than not you have a template. That template not only needs to be understood by you while you are building it, but the users must understand it as well so they know how to quickly interpret it and absorb it. Start your training class off by explaining the template to them and remind them as you are walking through it where special points need to be made. The documentation is going to be useless if the user cannot interpret what is in front of them. It is a quick one to two minutes of your time, but will save you time later explaining it again to all the users separately.
Consider these items for your next training exercise; be realistic, never make assumptions and over deliver to the user with training. You will benefit twofold from this extra work in the long run.
Best of luck to you and your team.
SLS
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SL Smith & Associates became a firm in late 2014. It was a result of the owner, Stephanie Smith breaking out from working for SAP consulting firms and doing it on her own, convinced that the cookie cutter consulting the same way for every one was so frustrating and not getting the job done.
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