Disclaimer: The articles in this blog post are those that I found interesting and relevant to the topic of ERP and technology in general. I have no commercial association with any of the entities mentioned in this article. I may be following a few of these entities on LinkedIn and even some of these entities may be on my LinkedIn or Social Media network. These articles are selected purely based on their relevance to the objective of this blog, to promote ERP. Finally, the summary is mine. While I stay close to the points in the articles, I also elaborate a few of them based on my understanding.
The Short URL for this post is http://bit.ly/ERP_User_Training
The steps in ERP Implementation are:
5. ERP Implementation: ERP Project Management
6. ERP Implementation: Requirements Gathering
7. ERP Implementation: Solution Design
8. ERP Implementation: Solution Testing
9. ERP Implementation: End user training
10. ERP Implementation: RICE
11. ERP Implementation: Integration
12. ERP Implementation: Data Conversion
6. ERP Implementation: Requirements Gathering
7. ERP Implementation: Solution Design
8. ERP Implementation: Solution Testing
9. ERP Implementation: End user training
10. ERP Implementation: RICE
11. ERP Implementation: Integration
12. ERP Implementation: Data Conversion
13. Post Implementation Support and Stabilization
The topic for this week is ERP User Training. The five articles selected are selected from around 12 that I reviewed. I found those also good and I will incorporate those in the next session on ERP Implementation. The first article is from QAD Blog and discusses three important steps to create an ERP Training plan. The second article from Panorama Consulting blog lists five strategies for ERP training and employee adoption. Any training strategy should start from AS IS business process as per this article.
The third article from Anakage blog discusses 9 tips to ensure successful user training. The key tips are to provide early training to the key users, ensure role-based training and use optimal documentation. While this article makes some good points, I wish they were elaborated a bit more. For instance when is the best time to start train the trainer program? Should it be formally done or the key user should be a part of the implementation process etc could have been covered. The fourth article is a Gartner report on ERP training best practices written by Pat Phelan. It covers five sections: Top 10 ERP training best practices, Top five training development best practices, Best practices for sustaining ERP training, Tips and trick to deliver a pre-implementation training program and Additional training considerations.
Did you know that about 23% of ERP failures are due to the category 'Employee' and is attributed to training and user adoption? This is a staggering news for an ERP professional like me. This is what I learned after reading the report written by Laurel Hodgins as a partial fulfilment for her MS program at Oregon University. This article reviews and summarizes 15 different journal articles on Enterprise Systems Implementation, Importance of training and knowledge management and Enterprise Application Training best practices. The article culls the lessons from those articles to 12 best practices for ERP Training.
Great articles all...Hope you enjoy reading them.
The third article from Anakage blog discusses 9 tips to ensure successful user training. The key tips are to provide early training to the key users, ensure role-based training and use optimal documentation. While this article makes some good points, I wish they were elaborated a bit more. For instance when is the best time to start train the trainer program? Should it be formally done or the key user should be a part of the implementation process etc could have been covered. The fourth article is a Gartner report on ERP training best practices written by Pat Phelan. It covers five sections: Top 10 ERP training best practices, Top five training development best practices, Best practices for sustaining ERP training, Tips and trick to deliver a pre-implementation training program and Additional training considerations.
Did you know that about 23% of ERP failures are due to the category 'Employee' and is attributed to training and user adoption? This is a staggering news for an ERP professional like me. This is what I learned after reading the report written by Laurel Hodgins as a partial fulfilment for her MS program at Oregon University. This article reviews and summarizes 15 different journal articles on Enterprise Systems Implementation, Importance of training and knowledge management and Enterprise Application Training best practices. The article culls the lessons from those articles to 12 best practices for ERP Training.
Great articles all...Hope you enjoy reading them.
1. Important steps to create an ERP Training Plan: Lauren Stafford: QAD Blog
https://blog.qad.com/2017/11/creating-erp-user-training-plan/
User adoption is the key to the success or failure of a project. To ensure it, the Organization must commit to a robust training plan. There are three steps to ensure the best ERP training to the employees.
1. Accept that the training will have to be tailored to your staff. Every employee will require different levels of training. Each user should receive training that matches her skillset. ERP Training should not be one size fits all.
2. Make decisions about who will lead and facilitate your training program: The leader, normally the Project Manager should have experience in implementing ERP systems and should have good communication skills. Superusers in each functional area can act as the facilitators.
3. Commit to continued investment in training: In many cases training starts and ends with the end with the one given during the implementation. Organizations focus on short term while forgetting the longer term requirements such as refresher training or new features trainings. An ongoing training plan will create a culture of continuous learning.
2. Five best strategies for ERP Training and employee adoption: Panorama Consulting Blog
https://www.panorama-consulting.com/the-five-best-strategies-for-erp-training-and-employee-adoption/
People related issues are the most difficult aspect of an ERP Implementation. With right strategy the organization can easily overcome these challenges. The five best strategies for ERP training are:
1. Start with business process: Define your business processes and workflows. Users understand business process, not the ERP application.
2. Identify change impact to these business process: Highlight the gap between AS IS and TO BE to each major workgroup in your organization. This will help employees visualize the changes.
3. Begin training well before the end user training: End user training a couple of weeks before go live is not sufficient. You need to begin training earlier and users need to understand their changing roles and responsibilities and need time to adjust to the changes. Ideally end user training should be used to fill gaps in the knowledge of employees rather than used as the initial exposure to ERP.
4. Always assume that you have under-invested in Organizational Change Management and ERP Training: Do not undercut training expenses
5. Ensure your executive and management team is on board: This is a motherhood statement in my opinion. Applies to everything related to ERP Project.
3. Nine tips for improving end user training on ERP systems: Rajeev Kumar in anakage.in blog
https://anakage.in/blog/2016/04/15/9-tips-for-improving-end-user-training-on-erp-systems/
According to Gartner Research “companies spending less than 13 percent of their ERP project costs on training are three times more likely to fall short of their business and project goals than organizations spending 17 percent or more.”. The reality is companies spend on a average 3.6% of IT budget on training.
Article provides 9 tips to ensure successful training.
1. Train the trainer pitfall: You can't provide training to key users just before go live and expect them to impart successful training to the end users.
2. Advanced planning
3. Role based training: One size fits all will not work
4. Role of superusers: Superusers may lack communication skills
5. Different kind of training at different stages: Initial trainings can be class room, face to face type, but as the project progresses, one can move to web based training.
6. Design training manuals well
7. Go minimalist with manuals (This is surprising): The idea is that people usually go to manuals only as the last resort.
8. Bring in context
9. Track and followup: Do not depend on feedback forms. The best guide for success of trainings is reduction in support calls related to that area.
Good article. Just like most of the articles from India, this do not elaborate points much. Once the reader gets the gist, he is expected to fend for himself looking for details.
4. ERP Training best practices: Pat Phelan for Gartner
https://www.gartner.com/doc/2156418/erp-training-best-practices
This is a Gartner article. To download the report, you need Gartner.com access. While I wait for my request to be approved, I found that I could gain a lot just by looking at the TOC. The report is divided into multiple sections. First section lists top 10 ERP application training best practices. These include Following adult learning methodology, Role-process based training, Providing end users with time to invest in training, Mandatory training, Using certification as a gate for granting system access, Building a great training team, Coupling training as a part of larger change management plan, Ensuring superuser involvement etc.
Section on Top five training development best practices talks about Conducting needs analysis, Using templates and standards, Actively identifying training content, Minimizing course variations etc. Best practices for sustaining ERP training include Assigning training management and oversight responsibility, Putting training in application support budget and Retaining a pool of trainers etc. The article provides tips and trick to delivering a pre-implementation training program and provides additional training considerations like keeping the sessions short, creating an enterprise training server or intranet etc.
The report looks really interesting..
5. Identifying end user training best practices for enterprise systems: Improving User Adoption: (Downoadable PDF)
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/644c/f5a3c43c5d2d31381d5ab01a6cc222e8ac64.pdf
This is a report written by Laurel Hodgins as partial fulfillment for the Master of Science program at University of Oregon. Enterprise systems (ESs), defined as “customizable, integrated software applications designed to support core business processes”, experience a particularly high level of failure. The price of the failure can be very high. Globally ERP failure rate is 75%.
Effective training can improve user adoption and it is a critical success factor in ERP implementation. There is a need to identify enterprise system training best practices, techniques, and strategies to enable users to adopt and successfully use these complex systems.
The question that this article tries to answer is: What instructional best practices and techniques should be employed during end-user training for ES deployments to improve user adoption and ES program success rates?
'Employee' is one of the eight categories of problems encountered during enterprise system implementation. This category includes attitude towards the system, lack of skills and knowledge as well as human error and represents 23% of all problems encountered during enterprise system implementation (Wow!!!). Two of the seven root causes of project failure, (applicable to this blog post) are lack of knowledge of the employees within the adoption (customer) organization and training schedules that do not provide employees with the necessary skills at the right time.
Another study found that external determinants such as user training, user fit, technological complexity and trainers’ support were important indicators in the success of adopting enterprise solutions. The study states that user training improves perceived usefulness of the application that leads to improved user adoption which in turn lead to implementation success.
The article presents 12 best practices as shown in the table below.
Check out this report. It is very good.
5. Identifying end user training best practices for enterprise systems: Improving User Adoption: (Downoadable PDF)
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/644c/f5a3c43c5d2d31381d5ab01a6cc222e8ac64.pdf
This is a report written by Laurel Hodgins as partial fulfillment for the Master of Science program at University of Oregon. Enterprise systems (ESs), defined as “customizable, integrated software applications designed to support core business processes”, experience a particularly high level of failure. The price of the failure can be very high. Globally ERP failure rate is 75%.
Effective training can improve user adoption and it is a critical success factor in ERP implementation. There is a need to identify enterprise system training best practices, techniques, and strategies to enable users to adopt and successfully use these complex systems.
The question that this article tries to answer is: What instructional best practices and techniques should be employed during end-user training for ES deployments to improve user adoption and ES program success rates?
'Employee' is one of the eight categories of problems encountered during enterprise system implementation. This category includes attitude towards the system, lack of skills and knowledge as well as human error and represents 23% of all problems encountered during enterprise system implementation (Wow!!!). Two of the seven root causes of project failure, (applicable to this blog post) are lack of knowledge of the employees within the adoption (customer) organization and training schedules that do not provide employees with the necessary skills at the right time.
Another study found that external determinants such as user training, user fit, technological complexity and trainers’ support were important indicators in the success of adopting enterprise solutions. The study states that user training improves perceived usefulness of the application that leads to improved user adoption which in turn lead to implementation success.
The article presents 12 best practices as shown in the table below.
Check out this report. It is very good.
No comments:
Post a Comment