After helping hundreds of customers get started with ScreenSteps, I can safely say the three most common requests I get are:

1. "How do I convert Word docs into ScreenSteps articles?"
2. "How do I convert PowerPoint decks into ScreenSteps articles?"
3. "How do I include videos in ScreenSteps articles?"

In fact, converting existing Word docs to ScreenSteps articles was the first priority for Washington State Community and Technical Colleges once they purchased a subscription. (I personally transferred 600 of their Word docs to ScreenSteps.)

I have a good friend (whom we'll call Rick) who runs a small agency that helps online businesses.

Rick's agency is very successful, but he's at a point where he's stuck.

The problem is that if Rick's agency brings on any more clients (especially larger clients), he will run out of hours during the day to get all of the work done that needs to be done. That's because every time Rick adds another client, it requires specific tasks to be performed that only Rick knows how to do.

When Owen Hutchison helped the Royal College of General Practitioners roll out Salesforce, he put together a robust plan of action.

Owen's Change Management Plan included:

• The impact the Salesforce rollout would have on each department (based on the changes to procedures and technology)
• A training schedule for each department, including usability testing
• Detailed procedure documentation (created in ScreenSteps)

The problem with documenting complex procedures and workflows

Writing a simple "how-to" guide is easy. But, in reality, most businesses aren't dealing with "simple" procedures. Many procedures are complex, involving multiple steps, decisions that have to be made, sub-processes that need to be followed, and exceptions to the "normal" flow that need to be accounted for.

Call Center Managers often struggle with agent churn. Churn rates in the call center industry are extremely high, especially early on in the agent's time with the company. What many managers don't realize is that many of their agents "feel stupid". They are thrown into situations where they don't know the answers and are constantly having to either put the customer on hold while they talk to their co-worker, or pass the customer onto their manager. 

THE biggest challenge that we see companies encounter is getting started creating content.

We see two camps:

• The "Document Everything We Can Think of" crowd
• The "Create the Perfect Plan Before We Start" crowd

They both run into trouble. The first group starts out really strong, but quickly gets burned out. The worst part is they spend a lot of time writing articles that no one ever uses.

In most consulting engagements that involve any form of change management the consulting team is required to deliver some sort of training material to the customer. This often takes the form of a "train the trainer" approach.

If you have ever been on a backpacking trip, then you know that a backpacker has to deal with competing goals when packing.

What will this article help you do?

This article is going to help you achieve better training results in less time by teaching you how to create clear training "Outcome Statements".

What if I told you that you were lost? But then I didn’t tell you where you needed to go? How would you develop a plan? How would you know if you were making progress? How would you know when you weren’t lost any more?

Create an Outcome Statement

In employee training, you clarify the destination by creating a clear definition of the outcome you want to achieve. We call this an “Outcome Statement.” Getting this definition right can make all of the difference.

An ambiguous Outcome Statement will make it difficult to create training materials, measure progress, and determine success.

A clear Outcome Statement will help you know:

• Exactly what training materials to create
• Exactly what to measure
• Exactly when you have achieved success (or failure)

Attributes of a good Outcome Statement

When new employees are hired on, your company needs to take care of 3 main things:

1. Paperwork (insurance, taxes)
2. Compliance training (e.g. ethics training, security awareness training)
3. Operations training (policies, processes, and procedures)

I'm betting that you've already got something in place for #1 or #2. Plenty of HR systems deal with paperwork, and several LMS apps deal with compliance training.

The question for today is, do you have a system in place for #3?