Ken Armstrong, Clarity PPM Delivery Manager & Senior Solutions Consultant, joined us recently to talk about developing a new user training program for Clarity PPM.
Many companies overlook the importance of establishing a post-deployment training program, and Ken described an ideal way to fill that need by accessing free training materials that in some cases can do up to 80% of the work for you.
Don’t Forget New User Training, Clarity PPM
“Across the board, any organization that expects to use Clarity PPM successfully should have some form of training program,” said Ken.
“Most companies recognize the obvious need for training during the initial deployment of Clarity PPM, but sometimes businesses fail to recognize or plan for post-deployment training needs, which are critical to the future success of Clarity PPM within the organization. If they don’t establish a new user training program, it creates a big gap.”
“Each organization uses Clarity PPM in a very specific way, so when a new Project Manager or Resource Manager comes in--even if they have Clarity PPM experience from another organization--not having that onboarding training program can cause recurring setbacks and result in poor data and frustrated users," said Ken.
New Project Managers (PMs) and Resource Managers (RMs) need to learn Clarity PPM competency to feed an organization’s reports and objectives, and while it takes time to put together a training program, we can get you started with ready-to-use materials from the RegoXchange, a nonprofit Clarity PPM educational library. Creating an account is free.
Free New User Training Materials, Clarity PPM
One RegoXchange training document that might really help existing users is the “Clarity Version 13 Users Guide,” which reviews new functions and features in Clarity PPM Version 13.
Ken also talked about another document. “Instead of starting from scratch and exhausting a lot of resource bandwidth putting together the materials for their training program, organizations can get a head start by using, 'General Overview & Navigation - Clarity V13.'”
The document will give you a high-level overview of navigating and understanding basic screens within Clarity PPM, such as logging into the system, altering notifications, and understanding portlets, functions, icons, and account settings.
“It’s not one-size-fits-all with Clarity PPM, but it’s a great starting point,” said Ken. “The training material on RegoXchange is in both document and video format and may cover about 80% of the material you’ll need to establish a new user program. You can tailor the remaining 20% to make it specific to your organization—add some additional content and screenshots—and your job is done,” said Ken.
Components of a New User Training Program, Clarity PPM
“Depending on the maturity of your organization, instructing project managers, resource managers, and portfolio managers how to do their jobs in Clarity PPM can take two hours or two days,” said Ken. “It depends on how customized the tool is and what a project manager or another role needs to do within the tool as part of their jobs.”
“In a best case scenario, you approach new user training by providing different flavors,” said Ken. “You might walk your project managers through face-to-face sessions with a peer, provide instructional videos, and make documentation, like Rego's free training documents, available to download from SharePoint or from the Knowledge Store within Clarity PPM itself.”
Often organizations provide a quarterly instructor-led training, on-demand. “And for those organizations providing classroom training, some—depending on the amount of their turnover and volume—have pre-scheduled monthly sessions for Clarity PPM project and resource management training,” said Ken.
Whatever the size of your organization, prioritizing post-deployment training for new users will help you make the most out of Clarity PPM.
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If you’d like help or assistance introducing Clarity PPM to new users, browse our nonprofit Clarity Educational Library, the RegoXchange. We have dozens of free portlets, training materials, reports, technical tricks, and workflows in theBasiX library.
For expert, instructor-led trainings, see our on-demand offerings, and for an exciting conference, join us at regoUniversity for training and networking. It’s the world’s largest, dedicated Clarity PPM event, May 3-6, but registration closes soon. We’d love to see you.
What new user trainings work well for you? We’d enjoy hearing about it in the comments.
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Ken Armstrong is a certified Clarity PPM functional expert and solutions consultant. He began his career in Clarity PPM almost a decade ago and has worked both as an external Clarity PPMM consultant and as part of internal operations with organizations using the tool. Having experience with both sides, he has a unique perspective and understands the challenges of both deploying the tool and the continued support and management of it. He has helped to define system and business processes, architect, and deploy solutions in a variety of different Clarity PPM modules, ensuring successful project delivery and training users. Ken graduated with honors from Auburn University with a degree in Management Information Systems. He and his wife Karaline, and their two kids, reside in the metro-Atlanta area, where he enjoys such activities as camping, grilling, playing his guitar, and taking his son to his travel-baseball tournaments.
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