Selling the sizzle instead of the sausage of an EDRMS to your Executives

on March 15, 2012

Advertisers know that the best way to sell a product is to persuade customers to imagine themselves enjoying that experience. Advertisements for sausages don’t list the meat content (and certainly not the fat content). Instead they conjure up the sound of sausages sizzling in the pan, the comfort of traditional cooking as everyone comes into the warm kitchen, out of the rain, safely home from school or work…. Selling an EDRMS implementation and changes to recordkeeping habits needs to sell the benefits and comforts of an EDRMS and good recordkeeping practices and not the EDRMS and recordkeeping practices themselves. Successful EDRMS implementations where the roll out is to more than 1000 people are not cheap. This is particularly so if all the external and internal costs of creating and executing viable change management, communication and training strategies are taken into account. To be successful the […]

EDRMS – Creating Your Blended Learning Success Story

on February 14, 2012

“What’s a blended learning solution?” our client enquired when we recently publicised our placement as Finalist in the Blended Learning Solutions of the 2011 Australian Institute of Training & Development Awards for Excellence. Its training talk for multi-mode training design was our reply. Whilst commonly used in major training initiatives, it is still rare to hear the expression within the Records and Information Management (RIM) sector, which is truly perplexing given that every EDRMS training program is a major initiative impacting all staff within an organisation. Blended learning solutions utilise multiple communication and delivery modes to educate the target audience and achieve a required performance goal. Providing learners a somewhat random assortment of modes of training is not blended learning and nor is it effective. Every element within a blended solution has a specific purpose. Blended learning, by its nature is complex. However, this does […]

Mind Your Language to avoid unintended consequences

on November 19, 2011

The day my father-in-law called another driver “Boofhead” with the four year old twins in the back seat has become part of family history. It was an expression eagerly adopted, and ever since, with any hint of conflict on the roads, other drivers have been known as “Boofhead” by the children. I can be grateful Grandpa’s language was never any stronger than that. It’s common knowledge that children adopt or imitate expressions of the adults around them, so we’re generally careful in selecting the words we use. Once a word has been adopted it’s very hard to remove it from their lexicon. Negative words and expressions seem to be adopted at twice the rate and are ten times more difficult to erase. Whilst adults are a more selective in their imitation of language, we’re not much more so. Think of words like “Google” that moved […]

Removing a barrier to learning

on September 20, 2011

I was recently approached by a client with a training problem. The records manager was involved in delivering training on creation of case files. These files were regularly presented in court as evidence. The manager felt the training content and general delivery was well received, but the program was obstructed by the participants at the same point each time. A heated debate would occur and the resulting tensions then hung over the remainder of the session. Even more frustrating to the manager was that the debated point was not a topic of focus in the training. This is a typical trainer’s challenge – how to run a session smoothly and not become distracted by peripheral issues. For a skilled trainer it may be easy to manage during the training, but the issue is likely to continue to cause confusion and disagreement in daily work. This […]

Network to Achieve Goals

on August 19, 2011

How to manage a sustainable training program when you are the sole record management staff was the subject of a discussion I had at the RMAA conference. Many Record Managers find it too daunting and put their training plans in the too hard basket. They say they will get to it when their organisation provides more staff. Unfortunately the longer it is left the more EDRMS avoidance will have set in, and the more difficult it is to change staff habits. Amongst our clients we have several who have successfully established strong, sustainable training programs with a recordkeeping unit of only 1 or 2 people. Their organisations vary from 1,000 to over 10,000 staff, and the growth in good recordkeeping practice over the past couple of years has been extremely rewarding. They have achieved what I call ‘organic growth’. Staff now actively seek out EDRMS […]

EDRMS – Using Facilitative Questions To Boost Your Training Expertise

on July 27, 2011

The challenge, as an EDRMS trainer or recordkeeper, to know the details of the work each business unit does and how they do it is practically impossible to meet. The challenge lies not only in gaining and retaining the knowledge but in the time required. But if you don’t know the details how will you be able to train your students or help them at their desk? After all, how do you answer student’s questions if you don’t understand their work? Not only does it take a very long time to understand each business unit, some are almost impossible to comprehend! After all, as an EDRMS trainer you’ve most likely got a background in the processes of recordkeeping, not accounts, law, HR or engineering to name just a few of the common business units you could be training. It’s not uncommon for an organisation to […]

Creating Project Team Cohesion

on July 27, 2011

Working with an EDRMS you’ll be aware that you are part of a team. Actual team member roles vary site by site, but they will encompass Records Management, IT Administration and Training. If you are part of an implementation or upgrade project that team is likely to extend to an array of consultants as well. Having worked on dozens of EDRMS projects now it strikes me that many people don’t actually work as a team, and even more importantly do not recognise this. Most of the time people perform their individual roles, many times very well, working towards a common goal (or so they think). But they work with very little consideration as to how their decisions and actions affect outcomes for other team members within the project. Therefore tension between parties escalates as the project progresses, and in the worst cases the parties are […]

Enliven Your Presenter-Style Training Sessions

on April 13, 2011

When you deliver Recordkeeping training to small groups working on individual computers it is easy to ensure everyone is active during the class, and to know if they are learning. But sometimes the budget, timeframe or topic determines that the training is to be presentation style to a large group. “How do I hold their interest?” is a frequent question. Many Recordkeeping trainers will acknowledge their audience nods off and retains very little of the information imparted. The skill is to construct your training sessions so that you are not just delivering the message, but to ‘test’ the audience understanding of your training. The ‘tests’ are short, easy activities that participants will complete, either by themselves or in a group of about three. For instance here’s a couple of ideas: Explain the Classification titling then provide each participant with 3-5 different records (pieces of paper […]

CAUTION: Paradigm Shift Ahead

on March 16, 2011

The shift in thinking and perspective required of EDRMS users to assimilate enough knowledge to ensure successful records management systems implementations is substantial. The shift is much greater than many expect, and much greater than the users themselves are able to express. If you are an experienced recordkeeper the change may be minimal. For everyone else, the Paradigm Shift can be so challenging that implementation stalls. Think of a Paradigm Shift as a revolutionary change from one way of thinking to another. It’s a transformation, or sort of metamorphosis in the way you view the world around you. Shifting your view of the world is an uncomfortable thing to do. Human beings do not just choose to reframe their thinking, but rather it is driven by agents of change. In the case of EDRMS implementations the agents of change are record managers and project managers […]

The seven deadly sins of EDRMS Change Management

on March 16, 2011

IT projects are variously reported in both online and print media of having a failure rate approaching 70% when measured against their original objectives. Clients we have worked with have admitted that they have had at least one or more attempts at rolling out an EDRMS. Failure is commonplace. Frequently, the failure is sheeted home to a failure of change management; that is a failure to change the attitude of key people in the organisation to one which is consistent with recognising the value of good recordkeeping practices to the organisation and themselves. So what are the seven deadly sins of change management in implementing an Electronic Document and Records Management System? Here are our thoughts: 1. Underestimation EDRMS roll-outs underestimate the degree of change required. In the worst cases they treat the roll-out of the system as they might a Microsoft Office upgrade; with […]

Selling the sizzle instead of the sausage of an EDRMS to your Executives

EDRMS – Creating Your Blended Learning Success Story

Mind Your Language to avoid unintended consequences

Removing a barrier to learning

Network to Achieve Goals

EDRMS – Using Facilitative Questions To Boost Your Training Expertise

Creating Project Team Cohesion

Enliven Your Presenter-Style Training Sessions

CAUTION: Paradigm Shift Ahead

The seven deadly sins of EDRMS Change Management

EXPERTISE

CONTACT INFO