Scott Lavoie Independent Training Consultant

1. The Best Practices and Pain Points of Implementing SharePoint Training Scott Lavoie Independent Training Consultant 1

2. Agenda Introduction - Me Needs analysis Instructional design E-learning Pilot training Helpdesk Mentoring Rollout logistics Evaluation Communications plan Sustainment plan 2

3. Introduction: Scott Lavoie 12 years experience in software training roll-outs. 6 years of work experience in the following Enterprise Content Management (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. Independent Training Consultant based in Toronto. Email: scott.lavoie@rogers.com 3

4. Needs Analysis Determine user roles: End User, 2-days Power User, 2-days Project Team Collaboration, ½ - day Helpdesk, 4- days Office 2007 or 2010 New Features and Integration, 1-day Advanced Training for Power Users: InfoPath Forms, 1-day Designer - Intro, 1-day Designer - Advanced, 1-day 4

5. Needs Analysis Interview stakeholders to determine workflow Try to incorporate workflow and metadata examples in exercises Leverage business analysis documentation into the training materials Determine learning objectives for each user group, which will drive your curriculum. 5

6. Needs Analysis Very common mistake: DON’T FORGET TO INCLUDE END USERS. Including end users in the needs analysis of the training process ALWAYS improves user adoption. 6

7. Training Strategy Document Extremely Important!!! 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/or budget you need, then your covered. People will try to blame training…guaranteed. The strategy makes it more difficult for others to blame you for training mistakes. 7

8. Instructional Design Training guide with hands-on exercises For example, a 2-day End User SharePoint classroom-based training guide is approximately 150 pages. Try to create: Navigation handout with SharePoint definitions. Quick reference guides - step-by-step functionality or exercise book. FAQs Job-aids, for example, end user business processes and workflows. E-learning (will discuss later) 8

9. Instructional Design “A 150 page training guide would be a luxury at my company”. NO TIME!!! Create an exercise booklet to teach functionality. An exercise booklet will appear “light”, but better than nothing. Additional handouts will help beef up the training documentation and give people something to take away. 9

10. Instructional Design How much should I customize training documentation for different jobs among user groups? Writing courses for different jobs is time consuming, however, sending people to a 2-day course when only 20% of the material applies to their job will NOT work. Divide end users between who will create SharePoint sites and who won’t. 10

11. Instructional Design…Lastly Incorporate your governance policies in the training material or your end users will be lost and not comply. AT THE VERY LEAST have your governance policy documentation as a handout and refer to it over and over in the training. Without enforcement, governance policies are just suggestions…drive the message home!!! 11

12. E-learning E-learning is the most successful when used for end user support or sustainment purposes (my opinion). Many employees think of training as a reward and prefer classroom-based training, which typically means resistance to the e-learning format and to SharePoint. To achieve compliance tie e-learning completion to HR annual performance reviews. 12

13. E-learning One of the biggest failures of e-learning is not the quality of the e-learning, but the education and promotion of the e-learning format. Educate, Educate, Educate!!! Promote, Promote, Promote!!! “If you build it, they will come” does NOT work for e-learning, just Kevin Costner. 13

14. E-learning E-learning requires a lot of promotion to be successful. You must have a communications plan You have to walk people through an e-learning module to promote it. A classroom-based rollout is a perfect opportunity to introduce e-learning A formal orientation of a SharePoint training portal, should be part of your class. 14

15. E-learning: Simulation software Create short SharePoint simulation modules for functionality. 2 to 5 minutes long…keep it short and sweet Popular simulation software: Adobe Captivate 5.0, US$799 TechSmith Camtasia, US$299 Provide step-by-step PDF docs beside e-learning links for users to print. Create a clickable Table of Contents for simulation modules to get at functionality fast. 15

16. E-learning: Online and live Popular synchronous (real-time) software: Cisco WebEx Adobe Connect Microsoft Live Meeting Description Works well for Q & A sessions Passive learning No way of knowing if people are paying attention. People are easily distracted by email, coworkers and work commitments when participating at their desks. Try to incorporate exercises, which need to be sent ahead of time so users can print them. TIP: Check-in often with users to monitor their exercise progress by doing a roll call. 16

17. 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 process. Give students a pad of paper to make notes during the pilot. 17

18. Pilot Training Allow students to make comments, but find a balance between asking questions and writing down comments. Be CLEAR, CLEAR, 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 all the comments. 18

19. Pilot Training Feedback Session: Have someone take notes while you lead the class through the lessons learned afterwards. A small gift for students is a nice gesture. 19

20. Helpdesk Training Helpdesk to receive the following training: End User, 2-days Power User, 2-days Project Team Collaboration, 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 in everything. 20

21. Helpdesk Input Helpdesk is KEY to user feedback. Have helpdesk produce a top 10 list of most asked SharePoint questions by users. Attend Helpdesk departmental meetings to compile top 10 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 in SharePoint training postal. Using a knowledge base page allows you to build a comprehensive FAQs list instead of scattered emails that quickly become buried. 21

22. 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

23. Mentoring Have a formal meeting with each mentor to explain the expectations and their responsibilities as mentor. Include them in meetings during the rollout and make them members of the sustainment team. Reward them with salary or external training (Sys Admin – 5 days) Give them recognition for their leadership and SharePoint evangelism. 23

24. Mentoring Create a mentoring team from your power users. They can share information and support each other. Power users are your eyes and ears in the trenches. They will be key resources for evaluating user adoption. Make them informed of all communications before it’s released to the organization, so mentors can answer questions and clarify. 24

25. 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. 25

26. 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, such as a week. 26

27. 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. 27

28. 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 28

29. Evaluation Don’t stop reevaluating and tweaking until all the courses have been nailed down. Anticipate the needs of the next department to receive training: Job specific training More training or less Computer suaveness Age demographics 29

30. Evaluation You have: Student evaluation forms Helpdesk Mentors providing feedback, what else? Pick up the phone and speak to managers and students. Use Surveys in SharePoint to solicit feedback and generate Business intelligence reports to spot trends. 30

31. Communications Plan Company newsletter – have a dedicated training section Tips, tricks and shortcuts Employee spotlights about how they are using the software and why they like it. Announcements as training date approaches, not just emails, put 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 31

32. Communications Plan Hit them and keep hitting them from every different angle and direction. Say it and say it again in as many different formats and ways as possible. Don’t just notify them about SharePoint training, tell them the benefits of SharePoint Evangelize, Evangelize, Evangelize 32

33. DOES THIS SOUND FAMILIAR? “Attended training, waited 2 months for Go Live, forgot everything”. 33

34. Sustainment Plan HUGE COMMON MISTAKE The sustainment plan starts on the Go Live date not after the start of the training rollout. 34

35. Sustainment Plan Create a Sustainment Plan to show management. Should be part of the training strategy Sustainment is a separate project than the training rollout. Sustainment involves the ongoing learning and support materials after Go Live. It’s unfair and unrealistic for helpdesk to assume this responsibility. 35

36. Sustainment Plan What you can do outside of the classroom, during rollout: Walkabouts the day 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. Create 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. 36

37. Sustainment Plan training portal: Short (2-5 minutes) e-learning software simulation modules New employees should have their own training portal site section to learn SharePoint. They are a different audience than existing employees. FAQs Wikis Knowledge base Discussion board 37

38. Sustainment Plan Keep your training portal up to date or people will not trust it and ignore it. If you can’t get your organization to contribute to a discussion board, it’s a communications problem. If you still can’t get people to contribute, then take them 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. 38

39. Technology training is about change management , not technology.