Re: Training exercises included in the product documentation

Subject: Re: Training exercises included in the product documentation
From: Kelli Bond <versakel -at- EARTHLINK -dot- NET>
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 1998 23:27:18 -0800

Hi Beatriz (and others interested)!

Sounds like your training staff--

1. is attempting to save money on training (internal
customers [employees], external customers, or both)
by combining the training exercises with the product
documentation

2. has limited experience in instructional design and
materials development for IS

3. truly believes it is adding value to customers by
providing printed "all-in-ones."

Regardless of the situation, training exercises belong in a self-study
guide, classroom student guide, instructor's/facilitator's guide, or
exercise booklet--*not* in the product documentation! (HP's and Intel's
advanced applications training for customers includes separate student
guides and lab exercise books.) This principle holds even in those
cases where internal end-user guides are set up a little like a
tutorial, emphasizing job functions/activities rather than system
functions.

If I were your customer, I'd want "context"--that is, *why* I'm doing or
learning something--for a given training exercise. Otherwise, the
training exercises are meaningless.

Product documentation focuses on the "what" and "how." Training adds
the "why." An effective print-based training lesson for software,
hardware, or other products:

1. Opens by telling the learner what he or she will learn.

2. Explains why the lesson is important (features and benefits
start here, and are reiterated at strategic points throughout
the lesson).

3. Provides background information about the lesson.

4. Shows the steps required to execute a given task.

5. Offers exercises for independent practice.

6. Summarizes the lesson.

7. Checks for understanding.

Items 6 and 7 can be reversed.

About system business rules: They, too, need to be documented
separately.

Sincerely,
Kelli Bond
Principal Consultant, KBA/DesignWrite
and President, American Society for Training and Development
Orange County (California) Chapter
(visit OC-ASTD's web site at http://www.oc-astd.org)




Previous by Author: Re: The Writer's Kit
Next by Author: Re: New Manager Needs Help!
Previous by Thread: Training exercises included in the product documentation
Next by Thread: FW: Use of "may" vs. "can" (was Use of "shall")


What this post helpful? Share it with friends and colleagues:


Sponsored Ads