Are your users skills as up to date as your technology?James Webb

15th May 2012

Who we are

40 staff13 years

200 clients40+ countries

50,000 people trained

…bringing people and technology together

Specialist training consultancy

Objectives

•To identify what considerations need to be made when upgrading with regards to your users•To help you identify and take action to remedy or prevent skills gaps in your work force

What do we mean by “Users”?

Core Users Self Service Users Occasional Users

• Using the system every day

• Frequently Finance staff, or procurement teams

• Wide breadth of functionality

• System not core to their roles

• Possibly use portals

• Often non-finance staff

• Varying skill level

• Varying engagement level

• Rarely touch the system

• May think that “this is Finance’s job”

• Disproportionately high support costs

What do we mean by “Users”?

Core Users

• Using the system every day

• Frequently Finance staff, or procurement teams

• Wide breadth of functionality

• Financial Accountants

• Management AccountantsAccountants

• Supplier Management

• Pay runsAP

• Credit Control

• Creation of invoicesAR

What do we mean by “Users”?

Admin

Credit control

Buyers

Approvers

Facilities

Buyers

Approvers

Receipters

Housing

Buyers

Approvers

Emergency buyers

Why are users important?

•ROI•Use of core resources•Blockers

Blockers

Approve requisition?No

Yes

Send back to

requisitioner

Business need for

purchaseBusiness need for

purchase

Create and save

requisition

Purchase Order generated and sent to

supplier

Goods Receipt completed

Invoice processedInvoice processed

Long term role of training

Finding your starting point

•What are your core team spending their time on?•What are your common support calls?•Getting help from the system and from ABS•Who are your users?•When did you last train them?

Common issues

Support from the system

•Business Efficiency Review•Reports

•Open Items•Incomplete

When did you last train – the forgetting curve

Ebbinghaus’s Forgetting Curve & Experiement

Within 20 minutes 42% of the memorised list was lost.

Within 24 hours 67% of what he learned had vanished.

A month later 79% had been forgotten with a meagre 21% retention.

Michael Doane, Doane Associates: Without some form of continuous training, end users are hopelessly out of sync with changes to the business process, functional upgrades, and transfers or new assignments – all roughly at a 10% annual attrition rate. The result is that user competency degrades over time.

Interpreting the results

•Look at each issue individually.

•Look at each role individually – not just user

types, but by role or by department.

•Map the issues to the roles

•Look for patterns

•Decide in each case – could this be done better?

What is the risk of allowing this to continue?

Interpreting the results

•If no, what has been successful for that group?

•If yes, what are you trying to achieve – by group?

What is the issue? How can you sell it to them?

•Is there a system issue, or a people issue?

•Does the risk of continuing low skills warrant an

investment in training?

Taking action

Training

Communications

Approaching managers

User champions

Training Requirements Analysis

What to consider

Constraints

•Locations

•Timings – holidays etc

•Elearning engagement

Resources

•Internal resources

•Hidden costs

•Training rooms

•Training environments

Budget

TTT Consultancy Costs

Back-fill Staff

Understand TCO of Training

Options: -

• Train internal staff to train

• Train internal HR trainers

• Buy in skilled trainers

Things to take account of: -

• Training is a skill

• Trainers are required when

resource demands for testing and

go-live prep are at their highest

• How will you avoid Knowledge

Degradation?

Inefficient Training

Ineffective Training

Loss of best resources

Unhappy Customers

Disillusioned Employees

Catch up Training

Training Materials

“It's unwise to pay too much, but it's also unwise to pay too little. When you pay too much, you lose a little money - that's all. When you pay too little, you sometimes lose everything, because the thing you bought was incapable of doing what it was bought to do.

The common law of business balance.

The common law of business balance prohibits paying a little and getting a lot - it can't be done. If you deal with the lowest bidder, it is well to add something for the risk you run, and if you do that you will have enough to pay for something better.”

John Ruskin – Late 19th Century Poet, Writer and Philosopher.

TIME

Getting buy-in

Refresher

Bespoke training

materials

Benefits

Costs

Audit

New staffUpgrading

New sites

Role change

PR

OJE

CT

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What Optimum can do

D D

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What next?

Develop

Design

-4 -3 -2 -1 Go-Live

Define

Deliver

Debrief

@Optimum_UKOptimum Technology Transfer Ltd

Tel: 020 776 9876www.optimum.co.uk