The revolutionary way to build a case for training refresh

In Change Management, the sad but honest truth is that a lot of projects will extend past their planned go live date. This simply means that you have to be flexible and fluid and adapt your plans and approaches to fit with the new timelines. But something that can really trip up a project and risk the success of a change is when training has already been delivered, the go live date has been extended, and there’s no appetite or inclination from the project or business to do a training refresh because apparently everyone already learned everything six months ago. They say “use it or lose it” and the same is true for training. So you might need to influence your project and business teams to commit time, effort and resources to a training refresh before go live.

What you need is evidence. And evidence from the people. So a great way to build the case for a training refresh is to run a quick confidence pulse or training pulse check to see where your team is at. It could be a simple two-question pulse like:

• How are you feeling about X?
• How confident do you feel to do/use X?

Or even - “Rate your confidence and then explain why.”

You can use the results of that pulse check to drive the need for training, maybe even earlier than go live (like “keep warm” training between now and the training refresh). For example, if the pulse check comes out and it's like, “I’ve forgotten everything. I feel very unsure of what I need to do”, you can use that as a reason and to garner commitment for a training refresh. We just need to keep checking in with the people and we can get real numbers behind it, or at least sentiment. If you didn’t want to do a formal pulse check, you could just ask every manager in their next team meeting to rate how confident they feel in X and gather some of the reasons why.

You sometimes need to have evidence and the evidence comes from your people. And of course, sometimes you have to caveat and take the results with a grain of salt and go, “These people will always feel they don't know enough. There is a level of learning on the job and learning once you launch.” But if you're like, “Really this isn't right, we should be giving more support,” then it might be about gathering the evidence up from your teams and your people and your leaders, collating that together and being able to showcase that to help make your case and get the decision for a training refresh.

After all - training is only useful if people actually put it into practice!

I’ll be running my own free training “How to Change Careers with Confidence and Earn Your Worth” with my friends over at General Assembly. 

This powerful webinar will help you reinvent yourself and your value by changing careers. 

Join me for an insightful and inspiring hour tomorrow on Wednesday 12 June as we explore how to change careers with confidence and earn your worth. 

CLICK HERE to register your free spot on my Change Careers with Confidence and Earn Your Worth webinar with General Assembly tomorrow. 

Lata xx

Lata xx