Trainers Talk: January 28, 2020
New Year, New Topics
Moderators:Asima Macci
Missy McDonough
Greg Tomlinson
Topics of Discussion:
How to put some fun into a technology upgrade that will help entice users learn the new features?
- Breakfast with Asima
- Like Asima, but just monthly "IT Q & A" with Einstein bagels - ANY computer question! and people come to just hear the other questions and answers :+
- Gamification:
- Themes:
- Make an upgrade fun by figuring a theme for that particular upgrade, and follow that theme through with the promotion of the new product, training, hand-outs, prizes etc.
- for example - when we rolled out Office 2007 (so long ago!), we used the theme of 007 (James Bond), investigating the new ribbons, and discovering the best tip in the firm, and so on - mini martini glasses and magnifying glasses were handed out at classes
- I used Gamification in a past rollout and gave away and iPad as a prize at the end. It made it a lot of fun!
- Instead of follow-up videos as FAQ's, maybe schedule time for smaller groups of trainees to ask questions / best practices / potential pitfalls etc.
- Tech Lounges that focus on new Tech when it is rolled out in the firm.
- Food fit for time of day
- PPT with demos
- "20 Tips in 20 Minutes" demo - keep it short & sweet
How to get attorneys to either attend training or give the training team time for individual training to learn new features?
- 1-on-1 training with attorneys
- We do Tech Talks, bi-monthly-ish. Video conference from NY, which allows folks working remotely from any of our offices to join in. We showcase something new, and it's been very valuable in getting folks to volunteer to be part of POCs/pilots.
- We do make it mandatory and provide deskside support if they can't make the training.
- Making it short and relevant
- I like to get myself invited to the attorney practice group meetings to demo something.
- We do a weekly Q&A session regarding iManage. Typically, the meeting consists of the IT team probing users to bring up any topics of concern. Any good ideas on getting end users engaged, so the sessions are more interactive and less lecture-y
- One of our trainers just tested being a "guest speaker" at a practice group lunch. Very successful.
- Because I am also Help desk, I do a lot of 1-1 when answering questions - showing them how to fix something, how to do something, set up a training calendar for the next month - send out JUST a copy of the calendar to everyone.
- a week before each class - send out a calendar invite to everyone - detailing the three basic items that training will provide - I try to base them on Help Desk calls from staff AND ATTORNEYS - when they see on the list of things to be learned something they want to know - they will come - they know the class is only 15-20 minutes long and they "can do that"
- We partner with Savvy training, and we had the biggest attorney turnout for a Savvy webinar when one of our partners emailed everyone prior to the webinar promoting the time-saving qualities of using styles and cross referencing in Word.
- Look at the technology they want to learn rather than what you want to teach.
- Our talent management team is also helpful in getting attorneys (at least first year associates) into learning sessions.
- tech huddles by position.
How to influence management that it is important to have one repository for all department work?
- When the firm issued a policy that all business-related documents should be saved to the DMS, that helped tons. That said, there are still pockets of creative workarounds.
- What helps for people filing in our DMS is that we moved to the Cloud last year, and people can access DMS documents from ANYWHERE (as compared to just documents on their hard drive or a local network drive)…
- We also use Mimecast and STUB emails after they have been in their Outlook Inbox after 365 days. they can't file those in the DMS (because there is nothing in the email, it's a useless thing to do), so emails are getting filed much more timely by attorneys, paralegals, and secretaries.
- We use Worldox for our DMS and there is a hook that pulls up the save dialog. If they user tries to close the window it requires a password that we in IT set
- We make it a requirement for the continued security of our data, so the centralization is driven by our Risk Committee.
- Getting actions mandated by the Risk Committee
- Through our technicians, we have actually removed Local Save and Local Open from the Word menu. The only save option people have is to go to Filesite.
- Name and Shame!
- Naming convention depends on each practice session here, but Peer Pressure from attorneys and paralegals (I can't find it if you name it wrong - not nice to hear from partner!)… so they name it correctly AND save it in the right "spot"
How does your department add value to the organization?
- Successfully On-Boarding new employees
- Agree on onboarding - targeted, get them up and running relatively comfortably, and followup deskside. Additionally, cross functional groups' workflow issues has been a good place for us to assist across the firm.
- Being a translator between tech and the end users
- I do a PPT of "flying tips" just 1 slide per tip rolling before and after class
- A must read: The Business Case for Learning, Patricia Pulliam Phillips, Ph.D and Jack J. Phillips, Ph.D.
- Here is a link to Roberta Gelb's article:
- Enabling communication between all the different areas
- Change Management
- Kind of off subject, I am stepping into a training position. I have no background in training and wanted to know if there is a blog or place on ITLA that I should start my reading and learning? Or another great resources to get me started.
#Training#HelpDeskandUserSupport