My company has been in an "evaluation" period of Exchange vs Lotus Notes / Domino. It has been hard to get across the fact that it is NOT "just email." I have discovered that the biggest complainers are the ones that have never been trained. I do not understand why companies will purchase Notes or any big software roll-out, only to ignore training. There is the usual push to train as the application is rolled out, But after that the new users are left to flounder and figure out what to do by themselves without so much as a "cheat sheet" on how to use the product. I have never understood the mentality of not wanting to spend money on training employees on the tools they are to use as part of their job function. It never fails the first thing cut during budget time, in my experience, has been training dollars .
I believe 90% of the complaints we hear would be eliminated if the end users knew how to use the product. I am thankful we are undertaking a monthly "Lunch & Learn" to hopefully get our end users a little more training and to share the knowledge.
My preference would be a "New Employee Training" program but I'll take what I can get at this point. Especially since the existing user base is frequently in desperate need of knowing how to do anything more than send an email through Notes.
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1 Keith H Brooks Permalink Yep, training is none existent.
One of my clients finally broke down and wants me to do a few hour
sof Dom.Doc training.
How he thought everyone would figure it out I will never know,
sadly .Doc was not the most friendly UI.
Lunch and learn is what I recommend to people who have resource
issues.
Also, set up a notes db and put hints, tricks and tips into it, I
think Alan L. had one or ask Duffbert.
Of course you could also start the newsletter tip of the week, with
some tips from your other tech people(SAP, Oracle, etc.).
And when all else fails, show them how to change the skin of their
desktop workspace.
At least let them think its cool and fun.
2 Debbie Farley Permalink Some very good suggestions. I'll start with the db for hints, tricks and tips. Then move on to a newsletter, if I can get buy in from the other IT team. Sadly some of them are the biggest complainers about Notes and they won't give me an hour to show them the basics.... go figure.