RE: How do you conduct live software training workshops properly

["Jessica Weissman" <Jessica -dot- Weissman -at- hillcrestlabs -dot- com>]

The last time I did serious software training was as part of a rollout
for a new custom system in a Federal agency.

The new system gave users more freedom to use their judgment, but was
more complex than the previous system; tasks would take a bit longer
until users were as familiar with the new system as they were with the
old system.  They were moving from old character-based terminals to
Windows clients.

So I had to convey both the goals of the new system and how to do the
daily tasks using it.

We had a training database, a training manual, and an exercise set.  I
led people through each task deemed worth teaching, took their
questions, then let them do more examples drawn from the manual on their
own.

We also had a comprehensive help system and a CBT simulation people
could use later.  Few people used the CBT, but many used the help
system.

We were lucky in that the agency allocated enough time and money to
create the training database and the other components of the training
program, and assigned people to come to the training and made the
training convenient for users.  Many of these things are luxuries.

We repeated the training in all ten regional offices.  It went okay the
first two times, but experience helped us pace things better after that.

-  Jessica

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