Many companies will still purchase software and try to "learn by the manual." This is a very costly and time-consuming way to learn how the software functions. It is best to have the vendor's training personnel train your people. If you allow your people to flounder or to let the vendor's programmers train your people will spell sure disaster.

It takes a certain type of person to train for software use, and part of the selection process should include the evaluation of the vendor's training personnel. Again, reviewing the training programs of Companies already using the software will ensure the program produces satisfactory results. Training and documentation also suffer when Companies try to reduce the cost of system implementation. One of the first areas they reduce is the amount of training or the number of sets of documentation. This practice results in poor utilization of the system.

First published in "the Operator", January 2007