TRAINING MANUAL - TIPS?

[Waffle]

Have any of you ever had to write a training (or SOP) manual?  I need to write one for my current job and I'm looking for helpful hints.  I wasn't expecting to have to do this - I thought I'd just train the new person and be on my way. Sigh.

The one good thing is that I have plenty of latitude - there is no standard format.  However, one could also say the bad thing is that there is no standard format. 

[alabamagal]

That is a thankless job. Everyone wants one, and then they will complain about it once it is done.

Depending on what type of job or what type of manual, one of the easist things is to model it after one that is already written. If you have an industry group, they may have some generic manuals.

I work for a small company and we went through this several years ago. We had a personnel policy manual that we copied from another company (with their permission) and just made slight modifications for ours.

[thyme4change]

I write process manuals for everything, even the stuff I don't have to train anyone on.  If I ever die, someone could rummage through my stuff and find out how I did everything.  

How I write them is as I'm doing it, I take note of the steps.  I've done my in a Word document and try to do it as I go along, although, sometimes I take hand notes and type them up later.  I also do screen shots (use snipping tool) as much as I can, although I try to keep them small.  When appropriate, I give them to someone else to try.

[Deleted]

I agree with Georgia, it is a thankless job. We have been trying to write up procedures at my company ever since I started 7 years ago. I'll let you know if we ever get traction on them.

[NomoreDramaQ1015]

I wrote one for our HPLC software.  It comes with one but it is HORRIBLE.  400 pages and I still couldn't find what I needed.

What I did was I took running the software down to what we need it to do in our lab.  I don't need 20 pages of information about how to make a 3D chromatogram.  I just need to know how to create one period.  My lab manual condensed 400 pages into 42.

My advice/tip would be "keep it simple".   A person coming in tomorrow could reasonably run the software beginning to end based on my manual.

[Deleted]

You know if you pulled a Dark you wouldn't have to do this...

I'd use kind of a triage approach.  Do as much as you can, but accept that it will never be perfect or fully complete.

(1) Brainstorm a list of all the projects you work on, tasks you are assigned, and things that other people in the office look to you for answers on
(2) Try to identify another person who knows about everything on your list.  Is there someone else who can do the same thing, knows what you did, or could otherwise answer questions for the next person in line.
(3) Start with any items on your list that don't have a name listed next to them.  Note where your files and notes pertaining to that project or its previous iterations are kept.
(4) For the things with no back-up contact, put together some basic bullet points on the steps you follow and procedures you use.
(5) Repeat this process for the things with back-up contacts.
(6) Go back in and elaborate on your lists from step 4.  Take screen shots of any software you use.  Walk though all the steps using your manual, see if you left anything out.
(7) Repeat this process for the things with back-up contacts.

I wouldn't want to leave a position until I completed items 1-3, but everything after that is a bonus.  I can't imagine a scenario where you would ever get through all 7.

[justme]

I write them like Thyme. I just write down the steps as I do them - abide by the KISS method. Throw in some screen shots, or write down what they should see/what should have happened so they know they're on the right track. Though I've also never had a really complicated procedure where after one step there's 10 different options and you chose one based on what happened in the last step.

[Waffle]

Apr 9, 2013 10:22:04 GMT -5 @craftysarah said:

You know if you pulled a Dark you wouldn't have to do this...

I'd use kind of a triage approach.  Do as much as you can, but accept that it will never be perfect or fully complete.

(1) Brainstorm a list of all the projects you work on, tasks you are assigned, and things that other people in the office look to you for answers on
(2) Try to identify another person who knows about everything on your list.  Is there someone else who can do the same thing, knows what you did, or could otherwise answer questions for the next person in line.
(3) Start with any items on your list that don't have a name listed next to them.  Note where your files and notes pertaining to that project or its previous iterations are kept.
(4) For the things with no back-up contact, put together some basic bullet points on the steps you follow and procedures you use.
(5) Repeat this process for the things with back-up contacts.
(6) Go back in and elaborate on your lists from step 4.  Take screen shots of any software you use.  Walk though all the steps using your manual, see if you left anything out.
(7) Repeat this process for the things with back-up contacts.

I wouldn't want to leave a position until I completed items 1-3, but everything after that is a bonus.  I can't imagine a scenario where you would ever get through all 7.

Sarah,

Oh - if only I had the balls (and the money) to pull a Dark. LOL

I asked the woman across the hall if she had to write a training manual and she said no - but she is going to be two doors down from the person she trains.  I'm going to be in a different department - two floors away and besides as she put it "Nobody else really knows how you do what you do".  

I do have need to keep in mind that it won't be perfect - sometimes I do get in that nasty perfectionist loop of doing nothing, because I know what I will do won't be perfect.  I do not have the luxury of falling into that trap this time.


Thyme and Justme - I like the screen shots idea, I'll definitely include that.  Especially with some of the things that I do in SAP.

Thanks everyone - feel free to keep those ideas coming.
   

[thyme4change]

Don't think of it as a training manual.  Think of it as a collections of "How-to's"  - sounds less daunting.  

[tskeeter]

Waffle, I start with lists of tasks.  The daily stuff, the monthly stuff, the quarterly stuff, the annual stuff, and the as needed or as requested stuff.  This gives an outline of the job and information about what needs to be done and when.

For documenting individual tasks, I include sources of data (reports and names of people stuff comes from), who the output goes to, and a copy of the workpapers and the completed information for the last time I did the task before preparing the information (sometimes the workpapers are in a separate file, if it's a big stack).  I'll include notes on how you know the information is reasonable and any special things or easy mistakes to watch out for.  If you are running reports, a screen print of the selection criteria with the report name or transaction code written on it is often the only documentation you need.

Reference lists are also helpful.  Lists of customer or vendor codes, location codes, transaction types, document types, account numbers, and the like.

When the documentation is complete, I'd probably show it to the owner and keep a copy for myself for a while.  If your employer does end up letting your replacement go, it's likely that your documentation will has disappeared.  A copy of your own allows you to take on a high paying consulting/training gig if you want it later.