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By: Rob Kronick
As I began to author this article on SharePoint training, an endeavour so very near and dear to me, there was so many topics I wanted to include. However of all these, the most important I selected is the difference between enrolling Business Users in just SharePoint Training Courses versus enrolling them in SharePoint Training Streams.
Whenever we implement a new computer system, we tend to think about training in a conventional way – each user will have a specific role and we need to gear our Training strategy, plan, and delivery to uniquely address each different role.
With SharePoint, however, as is the case with so many other Microsoft Office products, we need to think about our training in a different way. For any of you who have made the investment in understanding what SharePoint is all about, you will appreciate the notion that on the Business User side of the SharePoint fence, every person in your organization who creates and manages information can potentially benefit from SharePoint, regardless of position.
What’s more, the benefit is directly related to the level of expertise the person has – the more the person knows how to use SharePoint, the more they can potentially benefit from its use. Therefore, for SharePoint Business Users, it’s not a matter of deciding “who needs to know what”; it’s more a matter of “who wants to know how much”.
For example, think about an application like Word. Practically everyone in your organization, from the Company Leader who authors corporate strategy to the Administrative Assistant who types in a request for office supplies, uses Word practically every working day, and each of them benefit from it in much the same way. Moreover, the more one knows about Word, the more one can potentially benefit from it, and equally important, the less one needs to depend on scarce computer ‘techies’ to help get things done.
Well, SharePoint is exactly the same. Every single person in your organization who creates and maintains content can potentially benefit from SharePoint, and the more people you have in your organization who work well with SharePoint, the more your organization will benefit from it overall. There is so much of what SharePoint can do for your organization that is directly related to how much of it your organization wants to learn.
Accordingly, we recommend any Business Users in your organization who are to be involved with SharePoint, be enrolled in a SharePoint End-user Training Stream instead of just sending them on individual SharePoint Training Courses, and that this Training Stream be comprised of Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced-level courses.
By offering your Business User community this Training Stream, you’re providing them the opportunity to choose just how much SharePoint they want or are able to learn; to advance their SharePoint expertise at their own pace to whatever level they feel they want or believe they are capable of. And in turn, given the nature of SharePoint, an End-user Training Stream gives your staff the chance to harvest as much benefit from SharePoint as “they feel they want or believe they are capable of”.
Another benefit of enrolling your Business Users in SharePoint Training Streams is that when they first start out with SharePoint, they’ll probably have no idea what to expect, no idea as to how much SharePoint they will want to learn. In many cases, it’s only when the Business User has taken a Beginner-level course that they know they either want to stop right there or continue on and learn more.
Enrolling them in a Training Stream means a smooth transition to each successive level of End-user training should the Business User choose to advance. I believe every organization that has SharePoint should make SharePoint End-user training available to their Business Users at every level of complexity – from Beginner to Advanced – and let their staff avail themselves of it as they wish, whenever they want, all within the context of a SharePoint End-user Training Stream.
Just as an illustration of what this End-user Training Stream might include, the Beginner-level course could consist of 2 parts: Part I can address those Business Users who only wish to be part of a SharePoint audience; Part II can then move on to the next level for those who wish to contribute information as well as consume it.
Next, for the Intermediate level, the course could show Business User Managers and Team/Group Leads how to set up SharePoint Team Site as their Business Group’s collaborative space on the corporate intranet for their staff to store, organize, and share content, and to help them cooperate and collaborate with one another.
Finally, the topmost Advanced-level course would be for those Business Users who want to become SharePoint Power Users, i.e. those among your staff who want to become truly independent of computer ‘techie’ experts and realize the user productivity benefits that only a SharePoint expert can enjoy.
Those who take this course often become your company’s SharePoint evangelists, who not only enjoy helping others enhance their SharePoint experience, but who are also the ones to discover new ways your organization can benefit from this extremely powerful software offering.
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