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In the first article I reported how more than 50% of ERP projects are over budget and overdue using a 2103 report from Panorama Consulting. In the second article I presented research data that revealed a typical training curriculum for ERP projects costs 10-20% of the overall project budget, affects 10-20% of the organization and is the most underestimated budget item.

Given this, one cannot deny the importance of having a well thought out training and implementation plan for enterprise software projects. Yet many companies and consulting firms ignore the need for training and typically save it as the last activity before go-live or conduct it too early in the project without providing follow up training.

Phase 3 of the Training and Implementation Plan gives you an opportunity to showcase some creativity and to highlight, with real data, how users are progressing in the new system. It is also the phase that keeps users engaged in the system leading up to go-live.

During this phase I will be introducing the use of one of my favorite (and free) collaboration tools: Google Drive. You will also be presented with the option to use another one of Google’s great services for free: Google Sites.

With that, Phase 3 of the Training and Implementation Plan is:

Monthly User Proficiency Tasks

As the name implies, the objective of this phase is to accurately gauge the proficiency of your user base. Not just by seeing if they can follow a job aid to click where told, but to ascertain whether or not users are comprehending how the re-engineered business processes are functioning in the new system.

By conducting monthly user proficiency tasks, you will be keeping users engaged in the system and processes while helping them develop the required skills to operate post-launch. Remember, ERP systems are big, clunky, and often unintuitive to the user. It will take some time to get everyone in the organization functioning at the same skill level within the system but by conducting these monthly tasks, it will shorten the time frame. 

Other benefits of these monthly exercises are that users can practice and learn the system on their own time and it reduces training time that is required during Phase 4. Data will also show if users are struggling in certain areas and allow you to focus your training efforts there so that they are prepared for go-live. In some cases you may also find these exercises give you the opportunity to refine system processes and procedures of your more complex business situations.

Participants of the monthly tasks will include the SME’s and all end users broken out by module/section of the system as defined in the user tracking sheet. Supervisors and managers who will not be performing these tasks in the new system are not required to complete these tasks. 

Creating and Setting up Proficiency Tasks

There are five steps to creating user proficiency tasks:

1. Create task
2. Create online assessment
3. Validate task with colleague
4. Email task and assessment URL (link) to users
5. Review and report user training statistics

As with Phases 1 and 2, these exercises will be conducted in a functioning test or development instance of your application.

Step 1: Create task. Create tasks that are derived from the business processes that will be conducted in the new system. Examples of this might be to run an inventory valuation report, create an invoice or create a trial balance from certain accounts. It will be important to provide detailed instructions with these tasks and to include necessary job aids and data sheets so that users can complete these with minimal assistance.

To illustrate, I will expand on the example of creating an invoice. In this exercise, provide users with the background or script of the situation. During one of my implementations, it was a freezing cold winter so I decided to write a scenario where they just returned from a tropical island only to find there was a mountain of work to do in the new system. They had to create a new project, set up the billing tasks, enter activity, and create an invoice. The scenario was fictional, but people could visualize this potentially happening. You can read that cheesy scenario here.

Continuing with the invoice creation example, list the specific items to be shown on the invoice in your data sheet:

• Widget X, Qty 5
• Widget Y, Qty 10
• Widget Z, Qty 15

These three line items will total to a known amount. On the assessment form, you can create a multiple choice question for the users to choose from or a blank box where they must enter the invoice total. The difficulty level on proficiency tasks can be raised should you choose to do so. For instance, you could have one of the items above be exclusive of tax. Or you can split the invoice in two and then test users on the new amounts. Take this opportunity to be creative with these assignments while also challenging users to raise their level of proficiency in the new system.

Step 2: Create online assessment. Now that you have successfully created the proficiency task, we need a method of capturing the results of each task sent to the users. Here is where Google Drive comes in. Within Google Drive there are applications that allow the creation and collaboration of documents, presentations, worksheets, drawings, and forms. For our monthly proficiency tasks, we will use Google Forms to create the user assessments. If you have a Gmail account, log in click on the square tiles in the top right corner of the application and choose Drive. Even if you don’t have Gmail, Google Drive is free to anyone with a valid email address. You can sign up here.

After you have successfully logged in to Google Drive, create a new form by clicking “Create”, then clicking “Form” as shown below.

The application automatically places you in editing mode of the form. Creating and designing these forms is fairly intuitive and there are many types of questions you can create. Click the drop down box next to “Question Type” to see the list. To add a new question, click “Add Item” and select the type of question you want to create.

Start by capturing the names of those who are completing the form so that you can calculate the completion rate of the tasks and follow up with those who did not complete it. 

The types of questions to create are entirely up to you but I strongly recommend mixing in practical and theoretical questions so that users not only understand how things are done in the system, but why. An example of a practical question would be: “What is the total amount of your invoice?”, while a theoretical question would be “Using the examples below, which one bests illustrates why an invoice hard limit should be set for a project?”

I recommend also adding two scales at the end of the assessment to help you adjust future proficiency tasks: the time it took to complete the assigned task and task difficulty. Just like this:

This lets you know how much time users are spending to complete the task and whether the assigned tasks are too difficult or easy for them. Be courteous of people’s time and don’t create long, complicated tasks that take up 8 hours of their day. At the same time, look for outliers who may be taking an excessively long time to complete and reach out to these people to see if they need help and guidance from you or someone on the team.

If the tasks are to easy for them, kick it up a notch. If it is too difficult, scale it back. Remember, the objective is not to trick users but rather keep them working in the system while at the same time learning from the assigned tasks.

If you need some ideas to help get you going, you can view an assessment I created and sent out prior to Oracle launch #2 in 2012 here.

Step #3: Validate task with colleague. Just like in Phase 2, it is important to always validate and test that what you are about to send out to the masses will actually work the way you want it to. Email the proficiency task with the instructions, data sheets and link to to the online assessment to another member of the team. Have this person assume the role of the user by completing the task and taking the online assessment. This will ensure the instructions and test questions are well written and will save you from being inundated with questions from the users. To get the link (URL) to the online form, click “View Live Form” when in editing mode of the form, then copy the link in the URL bar of the browser.

Step #4: Email task and assessment URL (link) to users. Now that you have successfully validated the proficiency task and online assessment, send it to the specified users to complete along with a due date for completion. The recommended due date is two weeks from when the proficiency task is emailed. Why? As I discovered, humans like to procrastinate and will wait until the last minute to complete an assignment. Anything longer than two weeks will just mean the next month’s task will be mailed soon after. Two weeks is just long enough for people to figure out when they can complete the task and it gives you time to review the data coming in from the assessments before creating the next one. Also be sure to send out reminders as the due date nears.

Another thing I recommend is to encourage users to form teams or groups and work on the proficiency tasks together. This creates a camaraderie among the user groups and a sense of “we are in this together.” It also gives the nominated Subject Matter Experts (SME’s) an opportunity to start being a point of contact for users at various sites prior to go-live. Remember, the goal is knowledge transfer to the business. The business “owns” the enterprise software, not those who are on the implementation team.

Step #5: Review and report user training statistics. Now that users have completed the online assessments, it is time to review how they fared with the proficiency task. Hats off to Google for this one. As you are capturing user data, Google Forms is quietly aggregating and summarizing the data for you in to nice charts and graphs. Thanks Google, what a time saver!

To get these charts, open the assessment form you created and click “Responses” then “Summary of Responses” as shown below.

Now you can see all of the user responses neatly charted along with a percentage of what question was selected. And since you already know the answers to these questions, you can easily determine how many people chose the correct answer. How did my users fare on the proficiency task I shared with you above? Let’s have a look:

I can see that 86% of users correctly chose “False” in question #12 but with question #13, people didn’t seem as certain what the answer was. This might be something I want to address with the users in phase 4 of the Training and Implementation Plan. How about the time it took to complete the task and task difficulty?

It appears the proficiency task took the majority of users between 3 and 4 hours but there were quite a few who took 6 hours to complete. Notice the bars on the far right? Looks like 2 people took 8 hours to complete while 3 took a whopping 10 hours to complete! I ought to dig into the data and reach out to these people to see why they struggled with the task and offer them some one-on-one training and assistance to get them up to the same level as other users.

As you can see, this is powerful stuff! How many implementation projects can provide up-to-date training metrics like this? I would guess close to zero.

After reviewing the data and charts, share it! Send it to the users, along with the correct answers. They will want to know how well they did on the assessment. Most importantly, share this information with the project team, steering committee, management and any other key stakeholders. Be transparent and honest. If users are doing well, great! If not, adjust the training and focus on the trouble spots. At least you know where to focus rather than guessing or taking the word of one or two individuals.

User readiness was one of the many things that kept executive management up at night during my implementations. I was asked on more than one occasion how users were doing with the new system.

“Do you think they will be ready?”, I was once asked by an executive while riding in an elevator. Rather than have a meltdown, or lie about the numbers, I confidently said: “Yes. Users are averaging 78% on their proficiency tasks and improving every month.”

I had real data to rely upon for my response and I knew the users were getting better because I was in constant contact with them. With monthly proficiency tasks, you too can confidently report on user performance to anyone in the organization.

Conclusion

Phase 3 of the Training and Implementation Plan is Monthly Proficiency Tasks. Proficiency tasks are a means of measuring the proficiency of a user. Do they understand the “how” along with the “why” of this new software? In many cases, users are shown a new software system only once prior to go-live and it is so far away from the go-live date that they have completely forgotten everything that was shown to them. Other training programs keep users engaged by Computer Based Training (CBT) or other means but they don’t know how well this training is transferring knowledge to users.

Incorporating monthly proficiency tasks as part of an overall training and implementation plan captures real data from users and assesses whether or not they are comprehending what is being taught to them from both a practical and theoretical perspective. It lessens the amount of training time required in Phase 4 and also allows an implementation team to focus on areas where users are struggling or highlight any system issues.

Subscribe and stay tuned for the final phase of “Secrets to a Successful Software Implementation”!

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Bonus Section

In the introduction to this post I mentioned the option of creating a Google Site that you can direct users to during the project. If you are managing multiple modules and want to keep the content in a central repository, then I recommend creating a site. Let’s go.

Just released! A comprehensive playbook on how to install software in any organization. 

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Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) implementation projects have a bad stigma — some of it well deserved — and there are plenty of case studies showing how much time and money a company lost and why. But not all of the blame should rest on the software itself. After all, software can only do so much for your business. It can’t replace the people in your organization, redesign your processes (nor automate them), train your staff or build lifelong relationships with your customers. All of that is up to the company that chooses to implement a new ERP. There are times when companies don’t understand this about enterprise software. Ask yourself the following question: what is it about your company that makes the money? It’s your business processes, not your enterprise software. Whether it is the process of building a widget or the online checkout process; this is what makes the money.

Do you know what else makes the money? Having well trained people to execute these processes in the system software of your choice. If you make a widget, who will create the Bills of Material (BOM) in the system? When it is complete, who will ensure it is part of your physical inventory? Then of course you have the order process and billing process for said widget; again all of which are tracked in your enterprise software.

In the first article of this series I mentioned that the goal of this four-phase Training and Implementation Plan is to ensure the activities mentioned in the preceding paragraph are precisely executed by those who are responsible to do so. You don’t want these individuals staring at the computer screen waiting for someone to help them nor running around asking for help. You want them to know exactly what to do and when to do it. The business processes will be executed and the company will continue to generate revenue. This is the purpose of the plan and the reason I want to share it with you.

A 2012 study of training issues in ERP implementations by two researchers at Bucharest University revealed that user training curriculum is the third most important critical success factor; behind top management support and effective project management. The training curriculum is significant because it not only helps users to adapt to the new system but it also helps in the organizational change process.

The research also found that a training program may easily involve 10 – 20% of an organization’s personnel and an average of 10 – 20% of the overall implementation budget. So if the project implementation budget is $10MM USD, you can expect to pay $1 to $2MM USD to get the organization prepped and ready for go-live.

And if you’re investing that kind of money into the preparation of your organization, you ought to ensure you’re getting a nice return on this investment. To ensure this return, all of the users, supervisors and managers should know how to execute those business processes when you flip the switch on the new system.

Unfortunately for most companies, this cost to train people is not understood and data has shown that this is the most underestimated item in the project budget. Why does it cost so much to train individuals on new enterprise software? Let’s have a look:

1. Users have to learn a new set of processes (since a many of the existing processes are re-engineered during an implementation)
2. Users have to learn a new software interface that is often not intuitive
3. Method of delivery for the training (on-site vs. Computer Based Training (CBT)). Note: LISO does not recommend CBT as a delivery method
4. Competencies of the individual being trained (remember the user assessments in Phase 1?)
5. On-site support after go-live. (This is not re-training users after go-live. More about on-site support to come later)

If you are a global enterprise, travel costs for on-site training will be high depending on your global footprint. As mentioned in bullet #3 above, LISO does not use CBT. Why? Because no one knows what that user is doing when he or she is watching the video or taking the knowledge check at the end of the video. Did they really understand the concepts being taught or did they just hurry through and pass the knowledge check so they can get back to work? Working with the end users in person is by far the best training method when implementing software because as the instructor, you are in control of the classroom and behavior of the individuals. It’s easier to assess whether or not the user grasped the concept being taught and again, constant communication with the user base helps with the overall change process.

When preparing for Phase 2 of the Training and Implementation Plan, you will need to have the users segregated by demographic area and module (section) of software. This should be readily available since you are already keeping an up-to-date user list in Excel that details this information. Also be sure to include key management personnel who will be supporting the launch as part of the user list.

There are two parts to Phase 2. Having an up-to-date user list will help you send out the meeting invites for the following:

Monthly Web Meetings and Mini Conference Room Pilot (CRP) Sessions

Monthly Web Meetings: Once a month, schedule a two-hour conference call utilizing web meeting so that screen sharing is available to the participants. These conference calls will include the following people vital to the success of your project:

• Subject Matter Experts (SME’s)
• End-users. Not all of the end-users, only the ones relevant to this particular module or demographic region
• Key management personnel who will support the implementation (supervisors/managers)

Bullet #2 recommends you separate users by module because as an example, you don’t want to mix users from accounting with users from the warehouse function.

These meetings will serve as a means to communicate progress on the project while also opening the lines of communication between the project team and the organization.

The calls should include updates on the following:

1. Project timeline
2. Best practices/tips
3. Issue resolution
4. Solutions: fixes and enhancements
5. User proficiency assignments
6. User training stats
7. Question and answer (Q&A)  session at the end of the call

This is your opportunity to communicate how the project is going and be honest. If a solution or fix isn’t going as planned, let them know. If you can share with them a tip on how to better use the system, tell them. If you are at risk of missing a deadline, be up front. You will be surprised what you may get. When I hosted one of these monthly web meetings, I had a regional manager offer up two users to test a fix we had implemented since all of the resources on our team were overbooked. Because we held these calls every month, he understood our workload and our commitment to the project and he offered us a lifeline.

The Q&A session at the end of the call allows individuals to ask anything they want to the implementation team. Remember, people might be apprehensive about what is to come so this is a good time to let them vent and/or ask something to the team.

Be consistent with the message. If you are conducting these meetings with multiple user groups (example: a group in the USA and one in Europe) be sure the message is consistent. The last thing you want to do is tell one group something and another group something different. This will come back to bite you. Although people might be on two different continents, they will talk to each other. Send a consistent message to the user base and you will earn their respect.

These monthly calls are to be conducted all the way up to go-live. The monthly rhythm will make these calls habitual and expected by the end-users and again, foster communication to the organization. I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to communicate. So often I hear of project implementation teams visiting the users, training them months in advance and then they are never heard from again. One and done. Gone. Put yourself in the users’ shoes and imagine this happening to you. It doesn’t give you a big confidence boost that the project will be successful does it?

Mini CRP Sessions

Conference Room Pilot (CRP) gets its name from the setting in which the pilot (or test) is run: a conference room. Typical ERP implementations will have multiple CRP’s throughout the project. It’s basically a means of testing a business process and demonstrating the functionality of the software while identifying any gaps between the two. Since these sessions are conducted during the design phase, it gives implementation teams an opportunity to correct things in the new system before going live. Full CRP’s typically run for one or two weeks depending on the scope and magnitude of the implementation. For our purposes however, you will only conduct mini-CRP’s.

Every six weeks, schedule a mini-CRP session (with conference call and screen share) with the same group of people from the monthly conference calls. Make the supervisors and managers optional to attend. Since they are not going to be an end-user, they don’t need to sit through a session on how to create an invoice or issues goods to a customer order. But by inviting them, they will see you are engaging the users and actively pursuing feedback from them.

Before scheduling the mini-CRP, you will want to choose which part of the system, or business process, you will demonstrate to the users. Will you demonstrate how to create a purchase order (PO)? How to set up a customer or opportunity? Create an invoice? Whichever business process you choose, make sure you, or someone on your team, has tested the functionality and everything works as intended. There is nothing worse than attempting to demonstrate something to people and it doesn’t work. Not a good look.

I mentioned Job Aids in Phase 1. Make sure you, and preferably another person, have tested the functionality of the system using the job aid step-by-step. One deviation from the job aid (missed click or required field) will create confusion for you and the users during the demonstration. After demonstrating to the users, send them the job aid(s) you just used and have them complete the same task you just demonstrated on their own. Keep the conference line open and be available to answer questions or note any issues.

In general, the format of the mini-CRP should look like this:

• Introduction to the session and topic to be covered. Share any slides, images etc. with the group – ½ hour
• Demonstration of selected business process in new system using job aid – ½ hour
• SME’s and end-users will complete the tasks on their own using job aid – 1 hour
• Q&A session, notation of issues and wrap-up – ½ hour

Your own times may vary but in general a well thought out session will easily last this long. Be careful what you choose to demonstrate, don’t choose five processes or the session will never end and the info won’t be retained by your attendants. Be cognizant of people’s times and make these sessions beneficial to both of you. As with the monthly conference calls, these mini-CRP’s are to be conducted leading up to go-live.

Conclusion

Research has shown that training end users is the third most important critical success factor of a software implementation. It’s also the most underestimated budget item and costs roughly 10-20% of the overall project budget. If you are a CEO, CFO, CIO, Director of IT, or Project Manager and are currently involved in an enterprise software implementation, use this training and implementation plan developed by LISO for your organization. It will save you thousands, maybe even millions, in the long run.

Phase 2 of this training and implementation incorporates Monthly Web Meetings and Mini-CRP Sessions. Monthly conference calls provide a means to communicate progress on the project while also opening the lines of communication between the project team and the organization. During these calls provide an update on the progress of the project, status of any fixes or enhancements, user training stats and best practices.

Conduct mini-CRP sessions to demonstrate system functionality or a recently installed fix. Be sure you have tested the system before demonstrating to users and note feedback from attendees. Both the web meetings and mini-CRP sessions are to be conducted leading up to go-live so that the organization is fully aware of the progress and/or issues with the system.

This phase emphasizes communication with the organization and its users. Be sure to take advantage of having these individuals on conference calls and web meetings by being transparent and communicating both the good and the bad about the project.

It will build trust between the implementation team and the users.