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The Training Routine

Written by: Paul Cruse

Article Overview: How to speed up response to support issues and reduce costs at the same time.

The Training Routine

Hello, I wanted to write to you with a short note on training.

Cruse Control have helped numerous businesses and individuals overcome their own specific obstacles to improved production efficiency.

Almost every time that we are called upon to help, whether with FileMaker programming or with one of our ready made products, such as CONTACTS!, Publish!, or WorkflowPLUS!, it is into a situation of pressure that we go. Something that has to happen is not happening and the database solution has been singled out as the saviour. If we get involved, we like to think that it is because we agree with that estimation.

So in we go. We take the brief, we deliver on that brief, we add in the last minute changes and realisations that enivitably come about as one puts order into a confused area, or as one suddenly remembers some vital part of their procedure. In an ideal situation, a manual is written at about this stage too.

We then train the key users and enable them to train others, so that the systems are being used and then the return on the investment finally takes place. This is the part were our satisfaction is sealed in. We helped! And we’re all happy!

Now, we know that time can often slip by unnoticed and, some time later, we find that we haven’t heard from a company for a while, or, we have heard too much! We are called in because the database is “not working.”

A quick investigation reveals the majority reason for this problem: A manual may or may not have been written at the time of the development work, but whether it was or not, those who were trained have long since gone, leaving only untrained users at the helm of that investment. This means that the database is now misunderstood, unused and unloved. We train the new users and production starts to occur in the database again.

So, if you have a database that you are not using, I suspect that training is the missing step. Whether it was written in house or not, call on the relevant expertise, let that person/organisation have a look, fix what is not working to your specifications and train you on the rest.

Go on, do a head count. How many of the original users are still using the system? The others are untrained. Train them, or get someone to do it for you.

If you pay particular attention to training users in a heirarchical 'need to know' manner, you will have the top level of knowledge residing in one or two persons who can be called upon for those "everyday" issues. This person, carefully noting what is being asked for and by who, can see just who didn't get, or didn't understand, the training and handle accordingly. And when your top level of in house knowledge does not know the answer, time for some training there, or to call in the expertise.

Using this method, you will now have fewer support issues, faster - in house, response to every day situations, and a far more interested support company on the much rarer occasions that you do need help.

Train the users, keep them trained and watch productivity soar.

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Article Tags: cruse control, database solution, estimation, helm, improved production, minute changes, obstacles, production efficiency, relevant expertise, satisfaction, saviour, unloved, untrained users



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