Ricky & Stick - Any New Business Process Warrants New Training
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When a new software system is introduced, often with a loud public flourish, it sometimes happens that it falls flat on its face. Usually it's just embarrassing, but sometimes it's quite dangerous, with the potential for grave effect. This has led to a widespread belief that a large percentage of all software is seriously flawed, and that the craft of creating computer programs is unacceptably primitive.
Some of the belief is justified; there's a lot of bad software out there. But an equally guilty partner, one that usually hides far from public scrutiny, may be that the folks responsible for introducing the new system didn't pay any real attention to the training of the new system's users. Those users likely needed significant practice with the changed and reengineered business processes the new system demands, and with that training, the system might otherwise have been a triumphant success.
Now, Ricky may have been on to something with his new mode of snowball warfare. But he and Stick didn't bother to practice it, so they were total doofuses to try out such a radically different system when they were in mortal combat with Wally. (Who knows -- the whole future of the Ricky-Wally War might have been different.) For any manager whose responsibility involves bringing a system to IOC, the task of bringing its users to IOC is of equal importance.
Moral: it's worth looking carefully at how training appears in the project plans. If the training appears to be an afterthought, it's probably not enough. If the training is being squeezed by the schedule, the schedule needs to be changed. And if the training isn't even on the radar screen, then you'd be wise to buy a bus ticket and get out of town. Wally's got some nasty-looking snowballs, and he's right behind you.
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