Training and Rollout to End Users

[cognos_guru]

All,

We are planning to rollout Cognos 8.3 to our consumers soon and I was wondering if you all could share any useful pointers for training.  There are about 100 people, some technical, some not. 

Has it been most beneficial to have break out sessions, one large session, one-on-one, combination of all of the above?  Also, any common questions/concerns that should be answered?  It is a good idea to have a "help-desk" person on call or is that under utilized?

Thanks!

[DustPanMan]

Great questions:

What I have done in the past is roll out training in phases.  The biggest difficulty is always getting users excited about the new technology.  Therefore, I would recommend starting with a small "pilot" group of about 10 users.  You should work very closely with these users training them and helping them migrate any reports and build new reports. 

Subsequent roll outs can be a bit larger, but I would never do more than 20 users at a time. 

I highly recommend developing an internal web site with FAQ's and timelines for when people/ groups will be moved over to Cognos 8v3, and weekly group meetings for anyone to attend and voice concerns or questions.

I would also recommend that for your business users that will be using any of the reporting or analysis tools, class room training.  If you need help with any of this, BrightStar Partners (the owner of COGNOiSe.com) does have prebuilt training classes available, and we would love the opportunity to help.  I have included my email address below if interested.

Best regards,

Dustin - DustPanMan
dadkison@brightstarpartners.com