ECM Best Practices: Training

As I was designing the training for our new software product, ILINX Capture, I had to think about how to structure the training. The best analogy that I came up with is that training should be like a story. There should be a beginning, middle, and an end.

The beginning or opening of the training session should set the tone of the training. The instructor should use a power point presentation to describe how the training is structured, and to outline what they will be covering during the session. The information that should be given to the students usually ranges from introducing themselves to a breakdown of what is covered each day.

The middle of training should primarily be lecture and labs. The lecture should be on the material that will be covered the labs. It is important that the material be structured in such a way that it will make sense to the students. First, you should walk the students through the concepts of why and when you would execute a task in the software. This should be followed by how to execute tasks by using labs. The labs should directly reflect what has been covered during the lecture. The first few labs should contain step by step instructions that the students need to complete. As the students move through the training there should be less step by step instruction in each lab. Another thing l like to see in lab materials are screen shots of what the student is trying to achieve. This should include screen shots of any buttons that need to be clicked.

The end of the training should be a short review of what was just covered in the lecture and lab. This allows the instructor to make sure the students understand the material. On the last day of training the review will cover all of the sections from the training. The very end of training includes the dreaded test. The questions can be multiple choice or true/false. These questions should only cover the material from the training and not introduce new material.

As long as you follow this basic format your training classes should be successful.

Chris Sturiale

Training Manager

ImageSource, Inc.