What's the most expensive time you spend with your users? If you believe it's fixing their problems and straightening out the messes they've created, you're not alone. Yet when professionals talk about training and education as a cost- effective way to eliminate many problems, management is unreceptive. To them, the cost of sending new users off to classes is prohibitive, class schedules seldom coincide with the requirements of work, and the value of such classes is difficult to measure. Instead, most shops educate a user after he makes a mistake. That's when you must drop everything and fix the problem.

Isn't there a better way? Yes! It's an in-house automated training lab. For a relatively small investment in equipment, space, and materials, your organization can set up a flexible training environment that meets the needs of your users and staff without negatively affecting work flow, deadlines, or budgets.

This article tells you how to set up such a lab and provides you with an overview of ways to justify the cost to your management. It doesn't take a lot of work, but it does take some planning and commitment.

Identifying the Need

The first question asked about establishing an automated training lab is, "What's it going to cost?" If you're a manager, your thoughts become focused on equipment, space, and courseware. If you're a technical person, the required or desired features of the ideal lab pop into mind.

While both of these perspectives are valid, they are the wrong first question to ask. They have little or nothing to do with actually training a user. Equipment and courseware are merely tools that can-under the right circumstances-make a user's training experience more profitable. Instead, the first question should be, "Where will training bring back the best return on investment?"

There's no easy or universal formula for answering this question. Each installation and organization has its own needs, configuration idiosyncrasies, user problems, and application mix. With your intimate knowledge of the recurring problems within your installation, you may instinctively tend to focus on issues dear to your heart.

For an automated training lab to be really useful to your organization, it should address the training and educational needs of everyone in the company. It should become a new organization resource, and not just for MIS. For this reason alone, communicating with other departments will increase awareness of the need for training and possibly increase the support for establishing a lab as well.

The best way to identify a need for a lab is to circulate a memo, have informal conversations, and develop a list of training requirements. With this information, you can prioritize resource needs for the entire organization. A sample list might look like 1.

The best way to identify a need for a lab is to circulate a memo, have informal conversations, and develop a list of training requirements. With this information, you can prioritize resource needs for the entire organization. A sample list might look like Figure 1.

Identifying Resources

These training requirements usually elicit an interesting question about the organization: "Shouldn't Human Resources be doing some of this?"

The answer is yes, and chances are, if such a department is in place within your company, some of these tasks are already being performed. Indeed, you may find that they have already purchased some equipment specifically designated for training. Or they may have a need to purchase some equipment for training that they've been reluctant to obtain without a comprehensive list of requirements.

Human Resources may not be the only place in the company that has already invested in training equipment or courseware. Quite often, individual departments purchase materials specifically designed by vendors. And who can count the number of diskettes containing software tutorials that PC software vendors include with their packages?

Don't overlook less modern resources, either, like books, manuals, and other printed documents. They're often cheap and easy to provide, and many times they can be found taking up space in someone's office. Using these, create a reference library for employees to use as a backup to the other courseware.

These materials should be considered part of the resources available to your organization, but the real guide to identifying usable resources is the training requirements list you and your interdepartmental counterparts have created. The goal of any automated training lab should be to provide useful training for current organizational needs, not to act as an archive of obsolete courses. If such obsolete materials surface, recycle them appropriately.

Once you've identified the resources that exist in-house, you're well on your way to filling in the gaps to set up the automated training lab itself. List the materials you've discovered, note who has these resources, and see what equipment is required to make them useful. If such equipment exists elsewhere in the organization, note the location. Against each item, identify the intended student for the material (see Figures 2 and 3).

Now compare this list of resources to the requirements list. At this point, you'll probably notice that the training needs of the organization are out of sync with the location of the students, equipment, and available space. The automated training lab will bring those elements together.

Components of an Automated Training Lab

Let's look realistically at what is needed to establish a lab. Some of the terms I use may sound terribly formal, but that's part of the process. Establishing a new resource like an automated training lab often requires looking at simple things with new terminology.

The first component the lab needs is a curriculum. The curriculum is, quite simply, what you are prepared to teach. The list of training courseware and the library of materials represent the current curriculum. The goal is to supplement this curriculum with new courses to meet the greater training needs.

Training space is the most difficult component to establish. Office space is usually at a premium and quickly claimed for one important purpose or another.

The need for a dedicated space-separated from the interruptions of ongoing business-should be obvious. Trying to learn in the midst of phone interruptions, paperwork, and other normal activities is often impossible for the student. And watching a video in the middle of the office creates an interruption for everyone in that department. The dedicated space moves training from an occasional event within the organization to an ongoing resource.

A training space usually means a centrally located office or conference room where all of the training materials are made available. If this room must double for other tasks, it should be reserved beforehand. Identifying the importance of the automated training lab should be high on the list of priorities for that space.

What if no space is available? See the sidebar, "No Room at the Inn? Creative Space for Automated Training Labs," for one company's solution.

Now it's time to realistically appraise the equipment, determine if you have everything, and make certain that everything works. In the sample equipment list (see 3), the company has already made a fair investment in training equipment, but some of this equipment may be damaged or obsolete. For instance, the list shows an older PC available, but it isn't really sufficient to run current software.

Now it's time to realistically appraise the equipment, determine if you have everything, and make certain that everything works. In the sample equipment list (see Figure 3), the company has already made a fair investment in training equipment, but some of this equipment may be damaged or obsolete. For instance, the list shows an older PC available, but it isn't really sufficient to run current software.

It may be time to make a new investment. A good configuration of equipment would look something like the one in 4. If a new investment is warranted, choose equipment that will complement the real-life environment of your students while making certain that your configuration has room to grow with technology.

It may be time to make a new investment. A good configuration of equipment would look something like the one in Figure 4. If a new investment is warranted, choose equipment that will complement the real-life environment of your students while making certain that your configuration has room to grow with technology.

More and more automated courseware is appearing in CD form. This includes tutorials, manuals, and full-fledged training courses. Most newer CD-based courseware is being built to Multimedia PC (MPC) specifications established by Microsoft and others, though most older PCs don't meet the MPC requirements. Using the latest equipment guarantees that your company can take advantage of new courseware as it evolves.

Choosing Courseware

The final task is to research, evaluate, and choose automated courseware that fills the gaps in the training requirements. Automated training courseware is usually created and marketed by the manu-facturers of the equipment and software the company is already using, so start your search with these suppliers.

Courses are available through third parties who market to companies' training needs. These courses are usually advertised through professional industry magazines and the PC press.

If you have unique training needs, software is available to create comprehensive training courses at reasonable prices. The cost of creating in- house video and hypertext software is usually no more than the purchase price of automated training courses.

Once the courseware has been identified and purchased, the automated training lab is nearly complete. The only missing piece is the students.

Having the resources available for training doesn't guarantee that your company will send the students. The easiest means of rectifying this is to work with Human Resources. Let them know that the automated training lab is set up and that certain basic training courses (phone, voicemail, and terminal courses) should be considered part of the new-hire orientation. Once this pathway has been established, you'll be surprised by how many old-hire students show up for training.

Validating the MIS Process

Measure the students' progress and receive their feedback. Very often they are the best and final judge of the learning process. Listen to them and use their responses.

Have them fill out courseware and curriculum evaluations. The information received from them will help winnow out the useless material or suggest new elements you hadn't thought to include.

Automated training labs generally receive good responses from students. Properly used, they make happier, more productive, and more knowledgeable employees. The cost of the lab and courseware combined is paid off each time a student passes through the curriculum. The number of panic phone calls quickly decreases because there's a new resource available to help everyone through the trying process of learning new equipment and software. When a problem occurs, things don't seem quite so hopeless. It just becomes one more potential course topic for the automated training lab.

Thomas M. Stockwell is a senior technical editor for Midrange Computing. He's established a number of automated training labs as a systems engineer, MIS manager, and MIS director.

No Room at the Inn?

Creating Space for Automated Training Labs

Some organizations have dealt with lack of training space in creative ways. By using networked PC training materials-operating off a centrally located CD-ROM player-one company was able to place the automated training lab in the laps of the students.

One problem still remained: constant interruptions by coworkers and customers threatened to make a mockery of the entire process. The solution? Each student received a packet of detailed instructions designed to notify coworkers and thwart the confusion of the workplace. Those instructions read:

Dear Student,

You've been selected to receive workstation-based training from our company's unique networked automated training system. This system will make use of your desktop PC and communicate with our centralized training computer. In order to make this automated training successful, you must set up your digital classroom to protect your session from unwarranted interruptions. Follow the steps below. Good luck!

Step 1: Forward all of your calls to the appropriate coworker. If you don't know how to do this yet, call the operator.

Step 2: Notify the operator that you will be in a training session.

Step 3: Change voice mail messages so that everyone who tries to reach you will know you are in a training session.

Step 4: Place a sign outside your cubicle or on your desk informing coworkers that an automated training session is taking place.

Step 5: Open your materials (sign on to the system) and follow the on-screen tutorial.

Create Your Own Automated Training Lab

Figure 1 A Typical Training Requirements List

 Training Requirement Student Reason Word processing o New hires o New skills o Current secretarial o Upgraded software & new releases Spreadsheet o New hires o New skills (basic and o Current Accounting o Upgraded software & advanced topics) personnel new releases Microsoft Windows o New hires o New skills o Current PC users o Upgraded capabilities and the requirements of current software Intro to AS/400: o New hires o New skills User Training o Current users o Remedial and new features How to use the o New hires o New skills telephone system How to use the o New hires o New skills voice mail system AS/400 Accounts o New hires o New skills Payable system AS/400 General o New hires o New skills Ledger system AS/400 Client/Access o MIS staff o New features 
 
 Create Your Own Automated Training Lab
 
 Figure 2 A Typical List of Training Resources
 
 Resource Available Location Intended Student of Resource Telephone system video Human Resources New hires Voice mail video Human Resources New hires Microsoft Windows tutorial MIS, original in New Windows users software Accounting Basic Lotus 1-2-3 tutorial Accounting New Lotus users Manufacturing inventory Inventory Control Inventory Control manual control and audio tape personnel Payroll Accounting video and Payroll New hires in the manuals (Video was marketing department information but has a "useful features"overview) AS/400 manuals on CD MIS Programming and Operations staff Computer magazine back issues MIS Programming and (some on CD-ROM) Operations staff 
 
 Create Your Own Automated Training Lab
 
 Figure 3 A Typical Equipment Resource List
 
 Equipment Resource Location VCR and television Human Resources CD ROM player MIS department Audio cassette player Human Resources and Inventory Control department AS/400 Spare terminal available in MIS PC AT with no CD Sales department spare 
 
 Create Your Own Automated Training Lab
 
 Figure 4 A Typical Automated Training Lab Configuration
 
 Equipment List Estimated Cost Multimedia PC with CD-ROM $1,200.00 TV/VCR combo 300.00 AS/400 emulation 300.00 Letter quality PC printer 200.00 Media cart to hold equipment 150.00 Audio tape player 25.00 Total $2,175.00