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Subject:Re: Political Traps From:Locke David <dlocke -at- BINDVIEW -dot- COM> Date:Fri, 19 Jun 1998 16:59:53 -0500
If you work for training, then unfortunately you have to follow their
lead. Unfortunately departments that contain TWs and trainers are
usually run by trainers, because they are more leading edge in the sense
of electronic performance support, and are more task focused than TWs.
1) Trainers, in my experience, are usually information mapping pushers.
2) Training and documentation should work in a coordinated and
integrated manner. But training's content allocation shouldn't exceed
20% of the most frequent tasks performed by the user, and that 20%
should be redundant in the sense that documentation must cover the same
20%. Given that they should only be incorporating the first 20% of task
performance, they are probably doing too much work. I have worked places
that put 100% of task performance in their training. Their training
overwhelmed the customer and resulted in lost product sales. And, even
more importantly, the core task performance will not change much from
one version to the next.
3) Not relevant. Push ahead.
4) The people in training should really be instructional designers not
stand-up trainers. Stand-up trainers are not usually instructional
designers. And, the trainers should not be corporate trainers. Corporate
trainers are usually tight with management and HR. The concerns of
corporate trainers are totally different from those of an instructional
designer. This may explain why your trainers are tight with your
management, but these people are the wrong people to be developing user
training. Corporate trainers may parrot management assumptions and
incorporate them into training programs without testing managerial
assumptions. Rest assured that this is the quick way to fail.
Realize that the trainers may hold you to your earlier agreement with
them. If your manager won't give you a fair hearing, you may need to
wait until the next product cycle before you advocate your position.
Until then, work the political system yourself. Take the trainers to
lunch. Find out what makes them tick. Find out what they need. Then,
negotiate from a position of knowledge.
