This Beyond the BC Bits blog series focuses on the non-technological factors that play a crucial role in determining the overall success of an organization’s Business Central implementation project. The goal is to highlight and provide guidance on many of the major factors that will most significantly impact your project’s success.
Part 1 of this series covered how to properly prepare for your implementation project, while Part 2 covered how to work with a Business Central partner, and Part 3 covered the best practices for managing the implementation project. Future articles in this series will cover the use of Apps and customizations, data migration and deployment, and long-term management of Business Central.
In this article, the focus is on strategies and techniques that can be used during the user training and testing phase of the Business Central implementation project. Topics will include strategies for defining the types of users, planning training, and conducting training and testing sessions.
Understand the Goals and Roles of Training
Even before you begin building a training plan and schedule, it is imperative that everyone understands the goals of the training phase of the project and the role of each team member.
The primary goal of the training phase of the implementation project is for the trainer(s) to transfer their knowledge of Business Central to the users. The trainer should be thought of as a teacher or coach who is temporarily available to provide instruction and guidance for the users, but will not be available to the users when Business Central is deployed. Therefore, the primary role of the trainer is to deliver instruction on how Business Central functions so that the users can apply this knowledge and determine how the system will be utilized to meet the unique goals and requirements of their organization. Likewise, the primary role of the user is to learn how Business Central works and apply this knowledge so that an efficient process can be deployed.
In terms of specific user roles, there are two types of users. There may be different terms used to describe these users, but for the purposes of this post let’s use the terms “key users” and “end users.”
A key user is a user who (1) has knowledge of how the business operates, (2) has knowledge of how the current (legacy) software works, and (3) can apply what is learned during the initial training session to help define the new process that will be deployed in Business Central. Key users have a very important role during the implementation and often this is the department manager who is placed in this role. The key users must be willing to work together with other key users to ensure that the process flows smoothly between internal departments.
An end user by contrast is a user who will be presented with a set of documented instructions or training sessions on the specific steps that will be followed within Business Central to complete a process. The end users do not typically have input on the workflow to be deployed, but they are important during the testing phase of the project as they have much more detailed knowledge of specific requirements when working with customers, vendors, or items that may alter the workflow originally defined by the key user team.
Learn how the system works
I feel like I am “burying the lead” by placing this topic at this point in the article (and even at this point in the Beyond the BC Bits series!), but I believe that the #1 way to maximize the opportunity for implementation project success is to learn how the system works - before the go-live deployment. It sounds so obvious, so simple, and so easy, but yet many people neglect to truly understand how the system works while they have the opportunity. Unfortunately, we don't have the space here to dig into the reasons why people don't take the appropriate time and effort (that could be its own blog article!).
All users will eventually have to learn how the system works, so why do it the hard way and wait when you can do it the easy way and spend the time up front? All too often the required amount of time spent on training and testing is not completed before Business Central is deployed, and instead users begin to truly feel comfortable with how the system works after go-live. Making changes to how data is managed or how processes are defined after the go-live date can be up to TEN times as costly as making the same change before the go-live date. Users must be explicitly reminded of these facts at the beginning of the project so that the proper amount of time and energy can be spent upfront training and testing how the system works.
Schedule the training like Goldilocks
End users are those users who will be provided with a set of documented instructions or training sessions covering the specific steps they will be following within Business Central to complete a workflow or process. They do not typically have input on how the process will work and therefore they do not need to be involved in the implementation project until the end user training phase of the project.
Regarding the timing of the end user training, it must be done like Goldilocks – not too early, and not too late, but just right! The typical point in time to train end users is 3-4 weeks prior to the go-live date. Scheduling end user training either too early or too late will not maximize the impact of the training.
If end user training is completed too early, the processes and documentation may not be as well-defined as it should be, resulting in the end users being confused and anxious about how they will perform their job tasks in Business Central. Additionally, if the training is held too early, there may not be an adequate sense of urgency surrounding the go-live date and the users will leave the training sessions and forget the vast majority of what they learned once they need to put the training to use during go-live.
If end user training is completed too late, the users may end up feeling like they were not provided with enough time to practice learning how to complete their job tasks in Business Central. Additionally, the end users do have an important role in the implementation project because they are the closest to the mechanics of how transactions need to be completed, and in most instances new questions and insights into the detailed job tasks will arise that have not yet been considered by the key users and implementation team. Therefore, it is very important that the end users have enough time after being trained to practice and test their job tasks in a Sandbox environment so that these wrinkles can be ironed out prior to go-live.
While users can each train and test their processes individually after the formal user training sessions have been completed, consider coordinating specific days and times for users to gather in groups to train and test together. These sessions can improve teamwork and allow users to assist one another as they learn, ultimately resulting in happier and more well-informed users.
Provide end user training resources
The easiest way to both waste time and frustrate end users is to invite them to a training session where they are not provided with any learning tools, and then after leaving training session provide them with no Business Central sandbox environment, they can use for follow-up training and testing.
A successful end user training program requires tailored learning tools including user documentation, or standard operating procedures, that users will be expected to follow to complete their daily job tasks in Business Central. This documentation should be specific to the organization, should provide detailed steps, and screenshots of Business Central where applicable. Short specific training videos should also be made available to end users. This allows them to effectively re-train themselves as often as needed on a particular workflow process without any additional cost to the organization. These videos should be 1-5 minutes in length and specific to a single process or workflow to maximize the efficiency of both producing and consuming the content.
Just as important as end user learning tools is providing the end users with a Business Central sandbox environment that they can immediately use to continue training and testing on their own after the training sessions. Access to the environment should be verified BEFORE the training session is held and each user should be instructed to use the sandbox to continue practicing the use of Business Central continually prior to the go-live date. If an end user has attended the available training sessions and practiced their tasks in a sandbox, then the go-live date should be a stress-free non-event!
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