Updated:
Published:
January 31, 2024
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LinkedIn isn’t short on advice for IT, operations, training, and enablement teams. But when it comes to what makes us stop the scroll, what beats a widely acknowledged best practice every time?
A hot take 🌶️ or hard lesson learned. 💡
Here’s a quick round-up of training and enablement traps to avoid this year—from people who have been there, done that, and bought the t-shirt (despite the best intentions).
- Training when it’s convenient for you, not your end users
- Creating how-to guides with walls of text
- Including uncropped screenshots without crystal clear annotations
- Recording videos that don’t help people get unstuck ASAP
- Hosting mandatory workshops that pull people away from their jobs
- Shipping the long version of anything
- Committing random acts of enablement
- Hoping your ambivalent adopters will magically lean into change and new software
- Measuring product usage instead of process adoption
- Expecting your tech stack to solve business problems your tools weren’t designed for
To avoid subjecting you to a wall of text, let’s dig into #10 and save the others for another time. 😊
The reddest of red flags: Expecting your tech stack to solve business problems your tools weren’t designed for
Say you have an internal software training rollout.
Maybe you’re switching customer relationship management platforms or standing up a new human resources information system. The stakes are…not low, and neither is the pressure to quickly influence behavioral change and drive widespread process adoption.
If you’re thinking about leaning on your Learning Management System and/or Knowledge Base for software training success, do not pass go, do not collect $200, and do not set your project (and your co-workers) up for failure. 🫠
The greenest of green flags: Using the right tool, at the right time, for the right project
If you want to increase general knowledge (about your market, customer, company, product, or service)...
👉🏾 That’s what Learning Management Systems and Knowledge Bases are for.
If you want to increase software knowledge (so everyone can perform your company’s most critical workflows without pinging you every 10 minutes)...
👉 That’s where Digital Adoption Platforms (DAPs) and Work Instructions Tools come in.
And if you want to knock your internal software training or rollout out of the park…
👉🏼 That’s where Real-Time Enablement (RTE) makes a world of difference.
DAPs excel at using RTE to make teaching and learning new software possible—whether you’re a process expert with an org-wide rollout hanging over your head or an end user who just wants to know what to do and where to click.
Think about the impact you could drive if you had a way to:
↳ Empathize with your ambivalent adopters (who really hate change)
↳ Nix all your wordy documentation and long videos
↳ Embed instructions directly inside of the tools where your end users already work
↳ Deliver just enough training to help people evolve at their own pace
↳ Distribute process knowledge that can be applied in the moment
↳ Help everyone focus on more strategic projects (instead of trying to memorize software SOPs)
All you need is a tool purpose-built for internal software enablement. 💡
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