Customer Training (Excerpt)
Problem-solving approach to training
My mission:
Travel to one of our biggest customer’s sites to train users on complex SaaS-based data visualization software that they didn’t understand and didn’t like. I needed to:
Convince them that Rhiza could actually help accomplish both daily tasks and meet quarterly sales goals
Demonstrate the most useful features within that context
Help them use the software to solve real-world problems (cement skills and increase adoption)
My preparation:
Two weeks before, I surveyed the users: What were their attitudes? Perceived skill levels? Typical data viz tasks they performed, and how? This allowed me to prepare for some resistance and also allowed me to create some relevant practice scenarios.
I also structured the material by doing a task decomposition: What was the overarching goal? What small tasks needed to be done to reach that goal.
My approach:
I kicked off the training by establishing a baseline understanding:
What could Rhiza do? Did it match what they needed?
What concerns did they have? (Addressed as we went through training.)
What did terms mean? Shared vocabulary is important.
For each of those tasks I identified, I spent about 10 minutes discussing it and having them follow along on their laptops as I demonstrated it. Then, I gave them a problem to solve that required them to use the skills we just went over. I walked around the room and provided help as needed.
Example sequence: Click through to see progression
Pair-share-report
This is an example of a later exercise that asked the learners to work together to solve a more complicated problem, discuss what they learned, and share it with the rest of the participants. I like to ask learners to evaluate what they’ve done and discuss it with others — there are no wrong answers, and everyone has a unique perspective.
Problem-solving that resonates on the job
At the end, I had the participants work in teams to solve an overall problem that was very similar to what they do on a regular basis (only they were using Excel). They were free to arrive at the solution any way they liked, and I was happy to answer questions.
