Datasheet
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■ OVERVIEW OF TASKS
The perceived task Provide ongoing user training.
The real tasks
• Identify areas that require training.
• Create custom training materials.
• Coordinate external training resources and providers.
• Deliver training seminars.
The topic of training illustrates how many skills you need to juggle to deliver on
what seems like a single task. Your management thinks you need to be a good trainer
to pull off this task, right? But in order to develop and deliver user training, you need a
complete understanding of what your users already know, where the gaps in their skill
sets lie, and where to spend your training time to get the maximum return.
Here we have what sounds like a relatively simple task—providing ongoing user
training—that is actually a series of dependent tasks, some of which have nothing to do
with delivering training.
The perceived task Provide ongoing user support.
The real tasks
• Answer user questions.
• Catalog user questions and feedback to training processes.
• Determine root causes for user-support needs.
It sounds simple to say, “Provide ongoing user support.” Although answering
user questions is indeed part of support, the larger tasks of figuring out why you’re
having to support users and how to minimize user-support questions are how the best
CAD managers approach the task of user support.
Task List Conclusions
I hope this section has raised your awareness that the hardest task you face is under-
standing your task list. Only by analyzing your job will you understand what you need
to work on. I’ve talked to far too many CAD managers who are constantly blindsided
by unexpected tasks because they never took the time to analyze their task lists!
I recommend that you make a list of perceived job tasks and the real tasks you
need to tackle to meet the perceived needs. Doing so will automatically force you to
think more about what you’re trying to do—which will lead to better results.
Go ahead and close the book now and write your list of perceived and real tasks.
There’s probably nothing else you’ll do today that will pay you back as handsomely.
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