The 10 commandments of sharepoint training

:: Set expectations – To your users, SharePoint is all new, so your first task is to give them an

overview and to set expectations—what they can expect from the application and what you expect from them. If possible, involve your executive sponsor in this presentation, to highlight his or her support and the importance of SharePoint to your company.

:: If it’s not in SharePoint it doesn’t exist – It’s a good idea to set this expectation right away—

otherwise, you lose key advantages such as giving managers visibility into the business and doing accurate forecasting. Have your executive sponsor deliver this training segment as well to show that you mean it.

:: Be clear about how users are measured – Have clear metrics to let users know how they’ll be measured.

:: Answer “what’s in it for me”? – But don’t just make demands—get people excited. The best way to do that is show how SharePoint will make life easier—for example, with less administrative work, easier reporting, around-the-clock access, and so on. Ask one or more respected power users to deliver this training segment.

:: Provide hands-on training with real-life scenarios and data – Don’t make users figure out how

hypothetical data applies to them. One way to get people excited is to see their own data in the application, to show first hand what SharePoint can do for them. Be sure you clean your data and develop day-in-the-life scenarios your users will recognize as their own.

:: Reinforce your processes – Consider SharePoint as an opportunity to roll out more effective

processes that make life easier for users.

:: Help users learn the lingo – Create cheat sheets with SharePoint terminology, simple overviews of

your processes, and step-by-step summaries of the most important processes. These job aids will serve as a handy, easy-to-use reference.

:: Offer incentives – Motivate your users to dive right in with contests, incentives, and a little competition.  You can also use a leader board in the application to show how individual users compare in adoption, to generate some healthy competition.

:: Get feedback – Be sure to leave time for Q&A and ask people for their opinions. To get off to a good start, it’s important to clear up any confusion and to find out what’s on your users’ minds. Make it a priority to try to incorporate feedback into the application—and then be sure to communicate those changes to show users that they have a say in how the application works.

:: Provide follow-up training. Some people think you train users once and you’re done. But successful

training isn’t a one-shot effort. Be sure to follow up after a few weeks—your users will have a whole new set of questions. A great way to provide follow-up training is to recruit enthusiastic users to follow up with their peers and use what they find out to create highly targeted mini training for various user groups.