Increasing User Adoption of IT systems and Overcoming Barriers
08 January 2012 by Sue Pasfield, Capensys
How many of your users are using your IT systems to the extent that you would wish?
The main reason that people don’t fully exploit a system is generally a lack of understanding of its capabilities, unwillingness to change working practices and insufficient relevant training.
It’s always a challenge to provide meaningful training to disparate users who each work in different ways, performing different tasks. And yet, to be really effective, training needs to be targeted at each individual user, showing them how to use the system in the context of what they do and how they work.
All good trainers know that this is the most effective way to change increase user skill levels, but it has been very difficult to achieve using traditional training methods; faced with a group of disparate users in a classroom, it is nigh on impossible to give individuals what they themselves specifically need for the way they work.
But the news is good! Targeted and relevant training is now possible thanks to the Goal-Based approach, using blended learning as the main delivery method. The key lies in designing training around how users work, providing meaningful scenarios and streamlining the training so each user gets to see how they themselves can benefit from the system.
It’s all about them!
This is how Goal-Based Training works:
Step one: Identify business goals and desired changes. This requires a real understanding of what the firm expects and how users work, their personal work goals - not the application features they need to know!
Step two: Define how to measure key expectations from stakeholders and provide indicators to show that the training was successful.
Step three: Tailor the training so that it presents relevant work-flow scenarios which will be immediately meaningful.
Step four: Provide an integrated blend of marketing videos, preliminary work-flow based e-learning, followed by short, hands-on workshops. Support tools for on-demand coaching and quick reference should be in place for post-rollout needs.
Step five: Use tools which allow users to select the tasks they perform to generate personal training plans. Tools such as the Capensys Pathfinders allow users to choose from workflow statements which reflect how they interact with clients, how they create, edit, review and file their documents. They allow users to identify exactly how they work. Their responses are then used to generate a personal training which can include e-Learning, workshops, or one-on-one coaching with the firm’s trainers. These Pathfinders provide the engine for Goal-Based Training.
How Goal-Based Training works in the context of a large rollout.
When faced with rolling out a new desktop to 1800 users, a California based firm adopted this approach to convert users to Office 2010, new version of NetDocuments and a virtual environment. All users were invited to use the Pathfinder to direct them to the appropriate e-learning, which was a mandatory pre-requisite before attending workshops. In this way, all users were well prepared for their workshop session and were able to absorb more in class.
A “paradigm shift in how training is delivered” - elevating the role of IT Departments and trainers.
Relating the training directly to the Firm’s and users’ business goals and putting in place measurable outcomes, elevates the role of IT Departments and Trainers so they are perceived as having a direct and positive influence on the bottom line.
Delivering a streamlined training strategy giving users exactly the training they need to perform their jobs, reduces overall training costs is the most effective way to helping users be productive with the systems you have provided.
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