The top learning miss-steps that start-ups make. Part 1

Living and working as a Learning Pro out in Northern California I see and hear about a lot of training that is not serving an organization in the way it should.

So I've put together a list of the most common miss steps and mistakes I've seen and some thoughts on how these can be course corrected. Here is the first. More to come.

1. It's obvious. It's Intuitive

By there very nature start-ups are founded by smart people who see a need that is not being fulfilled. In Silicon Valley that usually means they have an idea that translates into a software solution to a problem that people have. Founders live and breath that idea and that solution. They see it through iteration after iteration, continuously improving and refining it. The lucky ones convince backers and develop that solution into a product and then iterate again and again. Then customers connect with the solution and those first few connections are always very high touch interactions. All the people connected with the solution are passionate about it and the invest heavily in making sure that the customers get the most out of it. Maybe you create some training for it. Leveraging existing content from the sales cycle into a training presentation and reworking the sales demo into a hands-on user experience for training. Then, if all goes according to plan, there are more customers and more people connecting with the product.

Then you get that piece of feedback.
People aren't using the software fully.
Or.
People are calling support to help through something that you thought was covered in training.

When you take a look at the what it is they are doing you just don't see why they just don't get it.
It's Obvious. It's Intuitive.

You are right of course. It is always obvious. But sadly not as obvious to someone who has not lived and breathed this idea and it's execution for the last few months and years.

As a learning Professional I always start with the fresh novice mind.  I am able to start with the luxury of looking at the product fresh and clean, without the impact of years of experience with the product, but with years of experience of people learning software.

Take a fresh look, or better yet ask someone else to take that look for you.

Part 2 follows soon

Happy Learning
Alan