Workers feel good about their jobs when they have command over the tools they need and are contributing to the overall wellbeing of the company. Some organizations are forgetting this, though, when they implement SharePoint.
In a number of cases shared with me at SPTechCon and various SharePoint meetups, a recurring theme is that people’s bosses are not training them properly in the use of the software. When workers don’t have command over the tools they needs to do their job, they feel stressed, stifled and put-upon, and this hurts productivity and the company’s bottom line. And the end result is that they just won’t use it.
Training is the answer. First, the company must identify who its key SharePoint people are, then get them up to speed on the features and functionality of SharePoint, as well as teaching them how to train others in the software. It’s important to select people who can both understand the technical aspects of the software and communicate its use in a clear manner.
In software development, a business analyst is the go-between that brings business goals to IT and translates those goals into technical specifics the developers can understand, and vice versa. With SharePoint training, it’s equally important that trainers understand the company’s business and organizational goals as well as how best to implement SharePoint to meet those goals. Further, the organization should create internal departmental experts as trainers and “go-to” staffers for the business users, power users, application architects and IT administrators using SharePoint.
At SPTechCon Boston in June, endusersharepoint.com editor Mark Miller (only one of his myriad titles) will co-present a session called “Training the Trainer” that addresses many of the issues discussed above, with more specifics and greater detail. It’s a new session for SPTechCon on a topic that’s been getting a lot of attention lately.
—David
