What Should Efficient Enterprise Software Training Look Like During Digital Transformation?

If you speak to anyone who’s been through a major software rollout that didn’t go well they’ll almost certainly point the finger at the technology. The memory is of the Monday morning after launch when thousands of people log into the new system and just stare at the screen, not knowing where to click.

The standard approach achieves very little. A week of classroom sessions, a go-live date, and a helpdesk braced for a deluge of queries. We’ve seen this play out time and again at Assima (we specialize in helping companies close this gap). Here’s what we’ve seen: separate training that sticks from training that merely gets scheduled.

Start earlier than feels comfortable

If training starts in the same week as launch, then it’s already too late. People need time to play with things, to make mistakes and to ask the questions they would be embarrassed to ask when it actually matters. The best programs get going as the system is being built so that by day one the people have already done their daily tasks numerous times.

Teams often wait because they think they need the finished system in order to start training. They don’t. They can start training as soon as they like. Waiting invariably ends up costing more than people realize.

Let people do the work, not watch it

A slide deck can show you what a screen looks like, it can’t teach you how to use it. The only way you actually learn is by doing it yourself, making the mistakes and trying again. If you try that on a live system with actual customer or patient data, though, you run into all sorts of problems.

The fix is a safe copy of the application. Employees click through an actual process, type in data, and see what happens. Nothing in production gets touched.

That’s what Assima Train offers. People get to do their job on realistic simulations so when they actually get to do it in the real world it feels familiar.

Assume the software will change

Training teams will invariably find out the hard way that software is always in flux. One release might move a button, a regulation might alter a form or a department might require a different workflow. The training course is suddenly obsolete.

If fixing those changes means rebuilding the entire course, then it’s unlikely to happen. The content gets out of date and people start going to their colleagues for help. Good training should be easy to update. If you change a screen, then that change should be reflected throughout the course, and the learner should get the updated version automatically. There should be no need to re-upload the files.

Measure what people can actually do

A completion rate only tells you that the person has finished the course. It gives you absolutely no indication as to whether they can actually process an order or close a ticket correctly.

What matters is performance. That tells you who’s ready, which steps are causing problems, and where you need to step in with additional support prior to launch rather than after.

Fit it around the workday

People have work to do. Taking an entire team away for days of classroom training is costly, and for the frontline it’s often not feasible. Short, self-paced sessions that can be delivered in the course of a shift are far more practical. Training should also be role-specific so that people aren’t spending their time learning features they’ll never actually use.

Because no one should have to sit through features they’re never going to touch.

Wrapping up

Digital transformation will always involve people having to learn new tools. The best training begins early, provides a safe environment in which to practice, and keeps pace with the ever-changing software.

That’s where Assima Train comes in. It creates a realistic simulation of your business software so your staff can practice prior to go-live. Your production data is anonymized so personal and health data is protected. You also get multilingual support with Assima (lessons can be translated into any Windows-supported language without having to re-record). Every click and every field is tracked so you can see precisely what your learners are doing.