A key element of Change Management is comprehensive training and ongoing support. When we decided to go the Google Apps option, we knew that it wouldn’t work without comprehensive initial and follow up training.A move to Google Apps represents a significant change for staff that have predominately worked in a Microsoft working environment.

It become obvious that we would need to adopt particular parts of the Google Apps environment in stages. Within the stages we identified particular tasks that staff would need to be proficient for their role in the organisation. This will be different depending on the nature of the organisation. Each will have a unique set of business processes. Having a clear understanding of these processes will help understand how Google Apps will serve it.

So the first thing I did was map out clear objectives of skills staff would need to achieve their role within the business process. I find mind mapping tools useful for this activity. After completing this, I should have clearly defined Teaching Objectives.

From this list of Teaching Objectives, we needed to work out the logical order in which these should be delivered. This is usually a prioritisation and linking activity. The linking is based on the inter-relativity of objectives that will delivered before and after.

When we have our Teaching Objectives, we need to break each into smaller deliverable teaching points. These are very discrete elements. I find it very useful to start thinking about the training materials that will be used to deliver these points: video, presentation, posters etc.

How much time you spend on each Teaching Objective is dependent of its complexity and/or the proficiency that you want the audience to have.

Another key thing we found when developing the training program was start putting some thought about the risks associated with not achieving the objectives.

The table below shows an example of a Teaching Objective teased out.

Training Objective

Teaching Points

Training Materials

Risks

Staff understand why we are adopting of Google Drive and Google documents

  1. Explain what are Google Documents

  2. Explain the benefits of using Google Documents over traditional suite

  3. Explain the limitations of Google Documents

  4. Explain the cost of infrastructure

  5. Explain the limitations of managing containers over content

  1. Google Slide – History, Google Doc suite

  2. Google Slide – Key Points

  3. Google Slide – Key Points

  4. Google Slide – Diagram, the growing cost of infrastructure

Staff do not understand why the organisation is adopting Google Apps and are therefore resistant to this change.