The early bird gets the worm
We’ve all heard that expression that emphasizes that starting a task early will yield a better reward or result. I feel that this adage can be applied to ERP training as well. Item by Item (IBI) Learning Platform is an excellent tool that is going to allow employees to get high-quality, online training for Dynamics 365 earlier than has been typically possible. Do you want your employees to get to be Early Birds?
After having worked over the last 13 years on numerous Dynamics AX (now D365) projects of various sizes and in a multitude of industries, one common thread that has tied all these projects together is the need for employee training. Proper employee training on ERP projects can contribute to a successful rollout that quickly achieves the software’s desired outcomes. On the other hand, when employee training is left as an afterthought, projects often struggle to get off the ground, causing frustration, poor adoption, and sometimes even financial losses. Fortunately, there’s a product like the IBI Learning Platform that can help employees get the necessary training they need, sooner.
I stress the word “sooner” because I’ve seen it happen, time and time again, where during a Dynamics project, training is given, but only right before go-live. To be fair, there are some good reasons for training employees just before a go-live, but this does not mean that employees shouldn’t be trained much earlier as well. Typically, classroom training is given to employees a few weeks or days before a go-live. However, this is often too late for employees to be able to dive deep into topics that affect their day-to-day jobs. As such, this classroom training skims over the surface of the software and leaves employees feeling frustrated as they neither learn the software basics comprehensively nor learn how to do their specific job in the new software.
The way to combat this training conundrum is to get users into training much earlier. However, this is often hard to do in the traditional classroom training method as it takes too much time to create the learning materials, and creating a schedule that works for everyone is quite difficult, especially when there isn’t a sense of urgency. As such, I see the perfect solution in IBI. Using this tool, a company can provide access to their employees to do tailored, comprehensive D365 training, in a flexible format – several months before go-live. This will allow employees to get a very thorough understanding of the out-of-the-box Dynamics 365 platform. Subsequently, when it is closer to go-live, traditional classroom training can be used to further enhance employees’ knowledge of D365 and at the same time, company business processes and/or customized functionality can be taught. In this dual approach to training, employees can benefit from self-paced, online training, as well as classroom training that is job-specific. Using the IBI learning platform for the initial training will allow for the classroom training to be more in-depth and company-specific. This is a recipe for success.
