Last week, I had three days of training booked through a training organisation that I work for regularly. First up was an Introductory Excel course on the Tuesday – a welcome, gentle, start to the week (the later days were tailor-made to a customer’s requirements and would involve some quite advanced work).
On Tuesday, then, I merrily set off and soon found myself at a very prestigious site in Piccadilly. Taking the lift to the third floor, I had to pass over the full-height central atrium on a slender white bridge in order to report to reception – fortunately I don’t suffer from acrophobia! I plugged in my laptop and copied across my beginner files, and then the delegates arrived. Four out of the eight or so expected, as some had found the pressures of work too demanding, and of those four, two popped in and out during the day in order to catch up with “urgent work” – the perils of training on-site! We started to discuss the programme for the day, and it was immediately apparent that they did not need an introductory course at all – on the contrary, they needed some highly specific text handling functions and probably macro programming as well! After only a few minutes, I decided that the only way forward was to drop the original plan and files, and workshop their own requirements. In the end, it was a really good day and we all enjoyed it thoroughly, but it was hardly the “gentle introduction” I had planned to set me up for later in the week.
The latter part of the week was two days’ training (Thursday and Friday) for a client in Basildon, again booked through my regular supplier. The boss of that company used to train there herself, and they had wanted her to do it, but she has moved away from the area and it was no longer possible. So I was asked to stand in and “be her”. No pressure, then!
We discussed the clients and their requirements, and I suggested the topics that I thought would meet their needs. My training outline was approved, and we split the delegates by prior knowledge into two groups. I used the same outline for each group but, as I had planned, the more advanced group sailed through the early stages and focussed on the more complex topics, while I ensured that those with less prior knowledge gained a solid understanding of the earlier topics before touching more lightly on some of the later items.
In the end, both sets of clients were very happy with their training and I hope to be invited there again, when they roll out a company-wide upgrade to Microsoft Office 2013. The easy start to the week that I had planned was anything but, and the scary customised training was received with enthusiasm and appreciation. You never can tell in this business!
