Lessons Learned in Training New Users

bcostlow

I am being asked to spearhead a training initiative at my company, to help new users (namely, new Support Foremen, Foremen, or Project Managers) form a solid foundation in several of our most used programs/resources. Obviously, since I'm here for this discussion, Bluebeam is one of those programs. I wasn't sure if this belonged in the question forums but I am curious if anyone has any tips, advice, or stories to share about their experience in training new users (especially those with very limited experience with computers or design software in general).

So far, I've created a tracker to identify topics covered and who I trained on those topics. The training program hasn't started yet, so I still have time to fine tune before setting off on this adventure.

The idea of this training came up because our company uses a significant amount of prefabrication in our construction projects and the new field leaders don't really know how to engage the prefab process to make the most of our in-house resources. I mentioned that it may benefit the company to get these folks up to speed and so I was told to tackle the training myself.

One last note: I am not currently a BCI or BCP, but hope to start down that road in the future if this program gains enough traction for me to ask my employer to support me in that endeavor.

Jes Stafford

Props to your team on recognizing the value on this kind of training program @bcostlow !

I would encourage everyone to save a PDF drawing or set of drawings for their personal sandbox while they are learning. This way they will feel comfortable kicking the wheels without cluttering up an active project.

Also, if Sessions will be part of your workflow, start a similar sandbox Session where the same kind of learning and interaction can take place. That way, once your colleagues get into active projects, they can re-visit the sandbox(es) to test drive their tools before making official markups.

Other than that, I always stress to new users to jump in and just try things… There is not much that will "break" Bluebeam and they can CTRL-Z undo as many times as it takes to get something right.

Good luck!

bcostlow

Thanks, @Jes Stafford !

Those are some great tips. I was already thinking of having them create a sandbox. I want to start using Sessions more, but right now it's not really a part of our workflow so I was thinking I would revisit that in the future if we decide to move more in that direction.

My supervisor always tells people Esc is their best friend, and Ctrl+Z is their best friends' best friend. He clicks faster than he moves the mouse so he constantly selects the wrong tools and so Esc is his favorite button. I tend to think Ctrl+Z is my best friend, and Esc is my best friend's best friend.

At first, most of the training will be over Teams I suspect, so I won't have any better way to get them involved than with Sessions, but for now I think the personal sandbox approach sounds pretty good. Thanks again.

ElizabethOliver

We are doing a similar thing with training our field staff in how to use Bluebeam.

What has worked well for us is involving one of our Field Team with the most Bluebeam experience to help draft and review training materials. They are the "go to" person when peers have questions, as they understand the questions/challenges better than office staff.

Our next step is to create videos showing key tasks being performed to pair with the documents.