Friday, December 19, 2014

How to make time for training.

My client asked me if I could help out a couple of his people.

Some background

There is going to be a small meeting on Jan 15th and a big one mid February and at both of those meetings a bunch of new technology pieces are going to be rolled out.

One of those things I've created some on-line job aids for already. Another is the project I'm working on at the moment.

But there are several others that I've not worked on and for some of them nothing exists at all by way of training or job aids.

It is now half way through the week prior to the office pretty much shutting down for 2 weeks.

The request

Could I create a '2 or 3 page pamphlet' to go with the new tech? You see they don't have time for any training.

This started a conversation.

Me: "So, At the end of this what do you want them to be able to do?"

Client: "I want them to be able to understand what is on their new computer"

Me: "What do you mean by 'understand' that and how will you know if they do?"

Client: ........ Has to think for a bit.


The idea

I know what I'm good at.
I'm good at creating multi-level, learner-centric eLearning. The sort that gives the learners the knowledge that there is information available to them on several topics and that they can choose how much detail they want/need for each of the topics.

I also know that if I try and condense large volumes of information it will take me a long time ("I would have written a shorter letter but didn't have the time"- Not Mark Twain) and there will be a lot of discussion about what needs to be in or out of the document.

So I suggested that instead of putting a 'help' PDF on the desktop of these new laptops I could create something a little bit interactive. "Let me show you what I mean."

So I headed to my Storyline, grabbed a Tabs template and created proof of concept in a couple of hours.

The Result



The first screen has one line descriptions of the six new things. If they click on the icons next to those we open up a layer with room for a very brief description and maybe an image or two. The common feature being a Learn more... link that takes them to a full page (or pages if we need to) that will give them a bit more depth on the subject. I populated most of these pages with paragraphs from my favorite Lorem Ipsum generator (It's better with bacon!) and showed it to them.

So I know what i'm going to be doing over the next couple of weeks.

Happy Learning & Happy Holidays

Alan



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