The End is Near

The end, that is, of two things. My stint in Louisiana, which ends October 29. I began working here last December (2004) on a four-month contract. Project problems - or challenges or opportunities - postponed the first big deadline twice. I agreed to stay on. But I made it clear that after Halloween I had other commitments that I could not change.

That first big deadline is changing again. Rumors have one or two months from the most recently agreed upon date. The rationale lies entirely on the technical side: getting software to address business issues as desired, anticipated, and needed. Training can always be ready, almost whenever the starting gun fires. And training can always be made better. We serve at the pleasure of the business.

Also at an end is the preparation for training. We have materials, policies, a training system (a model of the working system), and we nearly have an instructional design. We could use a lot more examples and exercises. We're training experienced employees. In other classes for other business units, they're learning quickly. They're getting it. This is likely to mean that we start training well before participants will begin to use new skills, and that we'll wrap up early.

Today, the plan is to deliver the four weeks of training, wait three to eight weeks, provide a largely unstructured refresher, and drop people into the hot water of the new job. I think it's irresponsible. I'm going to argue that the training design must be changed to keep participants learning from any given starting point until production begins. The horse-pill of new policies can be swallowed, but only if live ammo drill and practice follow the hothouse practice in the classroom. And I bet I'll lose the argument. But as I said weeks ago, you hope to show clients new ways of doing things and enable them to succeed. You try to tell them the truth.

Finally, my consultant manager has been virtually AWOL. Let's call her the C.M. You try to tell the truth. We'll see where that gets me.