Over the last few years, I've had the opportunity to work with clients as part of teams developing and delivering new ERP software or enhancements to existing ERP software.
The scope of the releases included not only communication planning, but training planning and delivery as well. As part of this effort, we discussed prior training that was developed - and what worked, and more importantly what didn't work. I learned that there was a general lack of dissatisfaction with current training processes, and complaints that it wasn't effective. So I delved into this and performed a quasi-debrief on these training ... because if we spend time doing it, we want to do it right.
I reviewed much of the documentation and web-based-help and found a lot of things. It presented information on each and every screen, what buttons did, how to navigate to different pages. There was good information there. Lots of information. But there was something missing.
What was missing was any discussion of Business Process. There was nothing that explained the high level flow of these processes, the inputs, the outputs, and so forth.
Without a fundamental understanding of the Business Process at hand, it is difficult for the audience to contextualize and internalize the training documentation. Explaining the information presented on each and every screen without relating it to a process leads to a very tactical usage of technology ("the how") without regard to its fit in the business at hand ("the why").
We modified the approach for instructor-led and self-directed training, web-based-help, in app guidance, and the end-user support process to include and start with key elements of the Business Processes. While it led to slight increases in the time to develop and deliver training, the feedback was overwhelming positive and the change curves were notably shorter.
There are numerous tools you can use for flowcharts. PowerPoint is quick and easy. Visio is robust. LucidChart supports collaboration over the web. Find whatever works for you.
Let me know if you have any questions, or need any assistance.
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