Have you ever invested in systems that end up not being used? Or been asked to use a system that other employees do not use? This happens more often than you might think—and the reason is rarely the technology itself. The problem usually lies in how the system is introduced, the training provided, or how well employees understand why they should use the new system. Watch the webinar recording:

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Through a large number of CRM and technology implementations for both large and small organizations, we at ProsessPilotene have identified a clear common trait among those that succeed in their digital transformation. Here you can read more about how we approach training and user adoption.

Do you have specific questions, or would you like to discuss them with our advisors?

Get in touch, and we can help your organization successfully adopt its new CRM system.

Transcript of the webinar held on February 6, 2025:

Have you ever invested in systems that end up not being used, or been told to use a system that none of the other employees use, but that you are required to use? This happens more often than you might think, and the technology itself is very rarely the cause. The problem usually lies in how the system is introduced, the training provided, and how well you and your colleagues understand why it is essential to use the system. So how can you ensure success when introducing a new system?

In today’s episode, we’ll give you tips on how to ensure successful user adoption—and simply holding a single training session is not enough. Real value is only created when all employees work well together and the IT systems you use eliminate distractions instead of adding even more noise to your daily work. So stay tuned to learn how to make your projects a success.

And with that, I'd like to extend a warm welcome to you, our subject matter expert on user adoption at ProsessPilotene. Welcome to the studio. First take.

Aud-Katrin Sugar: It’s my first time.

Frode Stenstrøm: Yes. Who are you?

Aud-Katrin Sugar: My name is Aud-Katrin Sugar. I have been working with users and user adoption since 1995, so I would say I am quite experienced and have seen a lot.

And before that, I was a high school teacher.

Frode Stenstrøm: And my name is Frode Stenstrøm, and I’ll be today’s host. Today’s broadcast will be a little different from many of our others, where we showcase a product, because this time we’ll be focusing more on training and strategy. First, a little about the broadcast, just so we have that covered. The broadcast is streamed live on YouTube, as we always do. It’s an interactive broadcast, so if you have any questions, you can ask them along the way. We’d love to know who you are and where you work, so please say hello in the comments below as well. We’ll also add subtitles and chapters to the recording, making it possible to watch the specific part of the presentation we’re showing now that is most relevant to you and your organization.

A little more about ProsessPodden: We have made several great episodes of ProsessPodden, especially with Moelven, where we talked about user adoption and how they train their managers in communication and... user adoption and change management. So like and share, subscribe to the YouTube channel, and follow ProsessPodden. We’ll see you in future broadcasts as well.

And as an introduction to today's topic, Aud, what is user adoption?

Aud-Katrin Sugar: Yes, it’s important that we agree on what it means. In short, it’s about ensuring that the system you’re given is used as intended. It’s therefore helpful to have some goals and to be able to measure progress against them. The problem and challenge is that you may have to change the way you work, which can be painful and difficult for some, while others find it exciting and are eager to dive right in.

Frode Stenstrøm: Exactly.

Aud-Katrin Sugar: So the point is that the system, or the solution, should be a useful tool rather than a daily nuisance.

And it really involves a great deal of change management within the organization. Often, it goes something like this ... I’ve seen many customers implement the IT system to change their work processes, using it as leverage.

But I know you have a pet peeve,

Aud-Katrin Sugar: Yes, are you thinking of my sneakers?

Frode Stenstrøm: No, both the running shoes, but also the fact that when we talk about user adoption, it’s really about much more than a single day of training.

Aud-Katrin Sugar: Yes, that's absolutely right. There's no point in showing up in a classroom where the instructor sees a group of people sitting with their arms crossed, saying, “I've been sent on a course.”

It starts long before that. All employees need to know why they are going to use a new system. You need a good plan, and you need to have worked on the courses so that they are well designed from an educational perspective. It is important to consider what kind of material the participants should receive after the course. And once they have attended the course, they can only retain a small amount of what they are expected to know, so you need a plan for how to help people move forward.

And finally, it is also very important to evaluate whether we have achieved what we intended. And what can we do if we have not reached our goal?

Frode Stenstrøm: And what you just went through is really the main topic of today's broadcast, where we'll be sharing tips and tricks for putting these things into practice.

And with that, we can move on to today's agenda, and the first thing we wanted to talk about was these.

Aud-Katrin Sugar: Yes, what are the critical success factors? What does a training strategy involve? How do we create a plan, what does it contain, what should the training process actually look like, how does learning take place, and how do we process pilots choose to design the training, particularly the classroom courses, so that we hope it will be easy for the participants to learn what they need to know?

Frode Stenstrøm: And these six points are the ones we will cover and examine step by step today. Hopefully, those of you watching can apply this in your own organization. And with that, Aud, let's move on to the first part, which is these critical success factors.

Aud-Katrin Sugar: It’s very difficult. As I said to you earlier, it’s like letting someone loose in a candy store. I think there are so many things that are absolutely critical, but I’ve narrowed it down to three. One of them is ensuring that the decision to start working with, for example, CRM is anchored in management, and that a culture of working with CRM is created.

This isn't specifically related to CRM, but in our case, that's what we're talking about.

Frode Stenstrøm: Yes, because we work extensively with these customer-centric processes here at our company, such as sales processes, marketing, and communication, but the principles are really the same whether it involves those things or implementing a new spreadsheet.

Aud-Katrin Sugar: Yes, of course, or anything at all

Frode Stenstrøm: Anything really, yes. What's the next item, then?

Aud-Katrin Sugar: I’ve selected the training plan. I think it is the key to success in many ways. It forces you to think carefully about several things that we will return to when discussing what the training plan contains.

Frode Stenstrøm: Yes, and we’ll go through that in this broadcast, so stay tuned until the end, when we’ll show you some of the elements in that plan so those of you watching at home can put them to use. And the last point you had selected,

Yes, I find that interesting.

Aud-Katrin Sugar: Exactly, right? You have a group of dedicated people who live and breathe the solution you’ve adopted—CRM in our case—and a team that drives it forward.

Frode Stenstrøm: Exactly. And I feel that I’ve seen so many examples of good initiatives in companies where things are going quite well, but then they lose one of the driving forces in the organization and everything basically collapses. It’s actually quite dramatic to see. So the process often depends to some extent on these key players in the organization.

Aud-Katrin Sugar: Yes, it’s just as important as it is in sports, for example.

Frode Stenstrøm: Yes, that's right. Let's see, there we go. So we'll start with the first one, about anchoring, Aud.

Aud-Katrin Sugar: Yes. So, let’s talk a little about what it means for things to be anchored at every level. One of the most important aspects is ensuring that everyone higher up in the organization—all managers at every level—understands what implementing something like CRM entails and what consequences it will have for the company, as well as for each individual employee.

Frode Stenstrøm: Do you feel that they understand this? When we talk about it—thinking about some of the projects we’ve done up until now—what’s your view? Because my impression is that when you explain these things to the company, everyone says, “Yes, we understand, and we agree,” but I don’t think they’ve fully grasped what it actually means in practical, concrete terms.

Aud-Katrin Sugar: No, it requires effort from them too.

Frode Stenstrøm: Yes, exactly.

Aud-Katrin Sugar: So that they understand what it entails for each individual and what is to be achieved.

Frode Stenstrøm: Exactly.

Aud-Katrin Sugar: So it is absolutely important to involve every level, from the top all the way down. But it is also important to think about what we need to make time for in order to succeed. What should we do to achieve that?

And another thing that I, as a very goal-oriented person, find strange is that very few have set goals for the training. What are we actually trying to achieve? Both in terms of KPIs, but also in terms of culture and how people work.

Communication with employees is important. This needs to be included as part of the plan we discussed earlier. It is very important to think carefully about what should be communicated, how it should be communicated, and when it should be communicated.

Frode Stenstrøm: But what I find so interesting about this particular type of topic is that when you say these things to a business leader or employee, everyone agrees.

No one says, “No, we don’t need any more information in our company.” All the customers I talk to, everyone, agrees with that. Until it comes to actually doing it—then the interest is a little more lukewarm.

Aud-Katrin Sugar: Yes, I mean, quite often in our evaluations, one of the questions asked is whether they received enough information beforehand.

And a great many people answer no. So people have an insatiable appetite for information. Yes, it does make them feel more secure.

Frode Stenstrøm: And I think that when people say they want, for example, standard project management and good communications planning, they agree to it, but they don't allocate time in the project plan to actually carry it out, because it's a task someone has to do, and it takes a fair amount of time, often at the expense of perhaps creating some tech-related things.

And then the tech stuff gets prioritized, and that's where we end up.

Aud-Katrin Sugar: That’s why it’s important to involve both the marketing team and those responsible for internal communications and HR when discussing communication.

Frode Stenstrøm: Absolutely.

Aud-Katrin Sugar: The more employees know, the more secure they feel, and feeling secure is important for learning.

Frode Stenstrøm: Project vision?

Aud-Katrin Sugar: Yes, it sometimes surprises me that a customer has invested quite a lot of money in a new solution without developing a vision for what they want to achieve.

They just need a CRM system for some reason, but there is very little thought behind it. So it is a real pleasure when you meet a customer who can actually say: This is our vision; this is what we want to achieve.

Frode Stenstrøm: And I would also say that if we receive an order where the customers are clear about what they want to achieve with their investment, they also enable us to perform better.

Because then we can know which tools to use to accomplish the task. But often—and perhaps this is part of Norwegian culture—we don't really have much of a tradition of measuring a project based on the results we want to achieve. We say we're going to do it. It's typically Norwegian to be good, but we don't do it.

Aud-Katrin Sugar: No, not always, at least.

Some people dare to stick their necks out, but not everyone.

Frode Stenstrøm: So, a little about the motivation behind this. It is important to ensure that each person who will be affected by a change is properly motivated, and the first step is to understand the purpose of the change. In many of the projects I have been involved in, people are assigned a task but do not understand why it is relevant or the order in which the tasks should be completed. As a result, individuals may not prioritize it, and we may have other priorities that are not optimal for the project.

Then there is the importance of knowing that they are being looked after. No matter how old we get, all people have a need to be seen. And they need to know that the courses they receive are tailored to their situation and are not just something generic that was found online, but that the course material is suitable for them. And then there is the fact that any whole becomes better—it is like a football team: the best results are achieved when everyone works in the same way, in sync, and together, and when they understand why this change is being introduced. This is very important communication that managers need to have with their colleagues, and that employees need to have with one another, in order to succeed with the training. Which brings me to the next item on the agenda: the training strategy, because there needs to be an underlying strategy.

What do we mean by that?

Aud-Katrin Sugar: What we mean by a strategy is how to go about doing something in order to achieve a goal. And if you are going to implement a new system, you should have a strategy for how to do so. That strategy includes some examples of what it would typically contain. To achieve success—and we have mentioned the importance of securing support. We have. We have mentioned having a plan, and then...

Frode Stenstrøm: The order of these bubbles of mine may not be perfect here; I'll just bring it up—like this.

Aud-Katrin Sugar: That's right. You moved a little quickly past the part about making sure everyone knows they are being looked after, because when you're learning, feeling safe greatly increases the likelihood that you'll remember what you're supposed to learn. And as for everyone being looked after, as a teacher I'm committed to ensuring that everyone has a safe and positive learning environment, and to explaining that if you feel you need to be told something three times, that's perfectly fine, because we have a plan for that.

So I just wanted to say a little more about that

Frode Stenstrøm: Yes, but that's great. Because it's so easy to sit there and say that you have a training strategy where everyone should know everything, or everyone should be able to do one thing or another. But ultimately, there is a cost aspect to this as well.

And it cuts both ways. One thing is the cost of providing colleagues with continuous training. The other is, as you have often discussed before, the opposite opportunity cost: the cost of not providing training.

Aud-Katrin Sugar: Yes.

Frode Stenstrøm: So, start by establishing a sound strategic process for setting a training objective and determining the means to achieve it. At ProsessPilotene, we have a considerable amount of ready-made material that you can use together with us, but this process should be carried out.

Aud-Katrin Sugar: I have a little calculation for that: If there are 100 employees in a company, and each of them spends five minutes every day either sorting something out, explaining a technology to someone who should already have been shown how to use it, or sitting there unable to get something to work, that adds up to one lost working year. So it’s expensive.

Frode Stenstrøm: Not providing training is costly.

Aud-Katrin Sugar: And everyone knows how long they've been sitting there struggling with something

Frode Stenstrøm: And I think the classic example for every company in the world is how much time is spent retrieving information. It doesn't necessarily have to be about finding something you've produced, but rather how much time I might spend finding something I've created myself, which is a challenge we can still help solve.

But that's another matter.

Aud-Katrin Sugar: But in that strategy, to go back to the image you had earlier, if I may do that for you now.

Frode Stenstrøm: No, you don't.

Aud-Katrin Sugar: There are some key points that should be included in such a strategy. And that's great—it's like buying yourself a nice set of tools—but it's very important that the strategy is actually put to use.

And sometimes I find that I create a strategy and everyone thinks it’s great, and everyone agrees that we should follow it, but then it gets put away in a drawer, where it remains safe and sound. But a strategy like that should be reusable across many different projects. It isn’t unique just because it’s a CRM project.

So I recommend that every company have a training strategy that they use whenever they introduce something new.

Frode Stenstrøm: And I think that every company has a sales strategy, a recruitment strategy, and product development strategies. This would simply be another strategy that we could discuss at management meetings and review and evaluate.

Because that’s where you can put a price on this. But once we have the strategy in place, we need to develop a plan for effectively putting it into practice. What would you say this kind of training plan should include?

Aud-Katrin Sugar: Yes, it’s easy to jump straight into deciding the dates for a course, who will attend it, and of course, that’s also a very important plan.

But you should take the time to consider who the user groups are, and also do something I’m very fond of: ask what they should be able to do after the course.

What do you want them to be able to do? Describe all the course types in detail, including the objectives for each course. Create content, and if you have created user stories, you can use them in the courses if they are good.

I don't know if everyone knows what user stories are.

Frode Stenstrøm: What is a user story?

Aud-Katrin Sugar: A user story is ... A sentence or two in which users describe what they would like to be able to do. So, I don't know if you have any good examples of a good user story?

Frode Stenstrøm: Well, as we often put it: As a role—that is, a given role—I want to perform some action in order to achieve a result. That is essentially the definition. But you need to be quite precise about who you are talking to, what you want to do, and why you are doing it, all in one sentence.

Aud-Katrin Sugar: So the ideal situation is when those of us creating the courses can find the user stories, if they have been created, and use them in the courses. That way, users get answers about everything they want to do.

A practical overview of who will teach which courses, who the participants will be, and how we will deliver the course. This is something that needs to be discussed. Will it be held on Teams, in a classroom, as e-learning, or as a combination? It is important to have a clear plan.

Frode Stenstrøm: And as you rather amusingly said by way of introduction, the training plan isn't just a set of dates; there are quite a few things to consider before you get to the practical matter of booking the dates.

Aud-Katrin Sugar: Yes, and there’s one thing I care deeply about, and that’s what happens after the course, because we’ll come back to that a little later, but... But it’s when you start applying what you’ve learned that you become proficient.

Frode Stenstrøm: And I know that you've talked about success factors.

Aud-Katrin Sugar: Yes, you should think about what could go wrong and what is important for success.

We do have some typical examples. Which I'd like to share right away, but I'll wait a little.

Frode Stenstrøm: Hold on, we'll get to that. We've talked about what user adoption is, we've talked a little about the strategy behind it, and we've talked a little about what a plan should include in bullet points. And of course, we can help you write such plans in detail if you'd like.

But then we move on to the actual training process part of it.

And as for the training process, we have tried to summarize it. This is a rather extensive slide, but we have tried to summarize the process itself. At the top, we begin with the prerequisites for training, and we have actually already covered many of those points. Then you move on to the first point, which is planning, assessment, and materials, followed by courses, competency assurance—which you were concerned with—and finally success measurement as the key steps.

Aud-Katrin Sugar: Yes, measuring is kind of cool.

Frode Stenstrøm: And if we look at the content of the planning part, that is what we need to reiterate, because we have just said that it was the plan for the content. But what we have not really discussed here is the assessment. You touched a little on the user groups, and you also mentioned the objectives and the setup, but we have not really talked much about the method.

Aud-Katrin Sugar: No, we haven't. Did you want me to say something about that now?

Frode Stenstrøm: No, we'll get to the methodology a little later. Once the methodology is complete, it will then be a matter of creating these things, and I think this is somewhat new.

Aud-Katrin Sugar: Yes, everything has its place. As the saying goes, one size fits none. A lot of people create PowerPoint presentations and put a great deal of effort into them.

And then it’s a little unclear whether that PowerPoint is a script for the instructor, a guide for the users after the course, or something intended to emphasize a point based on what you say during the course.

And that is what the PowerPoint is intended for, so when creating it, you have to remember that it is not intended for all those other purposes.

I’m very fond of instructor guides, but not everyone who has to create them likes them as much as I do. It’s about thinking very carefully about every single PowerPoint you have. What is the purpose of that PowerPoint? What is the most important thing you need to say in connection with it? Which examples should you use?

What might users find difficult to understand here, requiring a little extra care? I would say the instructor guide is invaluable, and it also ensures that those who receive training later—because new employees will join later—get the same high-quality training as those who were fortunate enough to be there on the day the new system was introduced.

Frode Stenstrøm: And that’s a very important nuance you’re talking about, because I think we’ve all attended a course at some point where the instructor just stands there reading text from a PowerPoint. For me, that adds absolutely nothing—the PowerPoint is something I could just as easily have read myself. I get nothing out of someone simply sitting there and reading, but an instructor guide that provides direction and allows the instructor to step away from the PowerPoint a little and communicate a message is very, very powerful. And I see the same thing when we work with sports and training: we do exactly what you’re describing. We essentially create an instructor guide that the coaches take with them into the sessions. Of course, you don’t use PowerPoint there—you demonstrate things in sports—but it’s still the guide that enables multiple coaches to communicate the same thing, so the training doesn’t vary greatly depending on whether coach 1, 2, or 3 delivers it.

And in large companies where there may be several people delivering courses, I would spend much more time on that guide than on creating so many PowerPoint presentations per se.

Aud-Katrin Sugar: Absolutely, yes. It ensures that everyone receives the same training

Frode Stenstrøm: Consistent and uniform training, yes.

Aud-Katrin Sugar: When it comes to the sets of exercises, we often receive feedback that the courses were not tailored to the way I work.

So you should put a lot of work into that and make sure you get the tasks right, that the tasks are relevant to the users so they recognize the situations. As I said, it shouldn't be a one-size-fits-all set. Then there are guides, or navigation aids as we have chosen to call them, which can help those who do not remember everything straight away.

I love navigation sheets because they provide step-by-step instructions on how to do things, while others somehow have the confidence to click around and learn through trial and error. They don't need navigation sheets.

Frode Stenstrøm: But do you think it’s just as relevant today?

Aud-Katrin Sugar: Yes, I actually think so. It shouldn't be on a sheet of paper, but I really do think you should have a set of instructions available.

Frode Stenstrøm: But what I’m seeing now, which you’ve probably seen many times at home, is that when there’s a new change to Facebook, for example, or to an application, the first time that change appears, you get this kind of microlearning. Click there, click there, click there, and you get immediate guidance on how to use it. So I agree with you on the principle.

But I think the format may become increasingly digitized in our application. Yes,

Aud-Katrin Sugar: but a sheet of paper is no longer a sheet of paper.

Frode Stenstrøm: No, it isn't.

Aud-Katrin Sugar: The point was that it was just a recipe.

Frode Stenstrøm: Yes, I agree.

Aud-Katrin Sugar: E-learning is great to use. When it is combined with other things, I think—or perhaps not so much. I mean, replacing a full-day course with e-learning is not something I support, but using it for motivation or review, or to demonstrate something—e-learning is great for that, so I have absolutely nothing against it.

On the contrary, I find it very exciting.

Frode Stenstrøm: I also enjoy e-learning, but I think e-learning as a format has changed a lot over the years, from traditional learning systems to perhaps more... microlearning, or perhaps even something almost like a reference work, or simply a way to review something before moving on to the exercise.

Aud-Katrin Sugar: Absolutely. And user documentation is more for users to refer to afterwards. This is where many people think the PowerPoint presentation replaces the user documentation, but it doesn't. And if you've been very thorough with all the tasks you've completed beforehand, such as the instructor guide and so on, then creating user documentation is very quick.

Frode Stenstrøm: That's right. It becomes the master for the other things.

Aud-Katrin Sugar: Yes, I think more people could make something like that. And it doesn't have to be a... a paper booklet; it could just as well be in a digital format somewhere, so perhaps we need to find a new word for it.

Frode Stenstrøm: And what I find particularly exciting about these kinds of materials is that this is an area that is developing very rapidly right now.

If you look at YouTube's traffic, for example, most of it consists of videos explaining how to do things.

And as artificial intelligence has emerged and mobile apps have become available, people are starting to ask more questions instead of searching Google using keywords. Many of these questions are about what something is, how it works, why it happens, and similar topics.

And being able to create documentation that answers those questions is important, because people do not want to spend a lot of time. We need to move forward, after all. So now there is a great deal of artificial intelligence that supports AI, but when you look at the blogs and the people behind Google Learn's artificial intelligence platform, they state explicitly that what they are doing is not intended to replace traditional learning materials, but to supplement them for those who have learned the fundamentals and want to progress a little further.

Aud-Katrin Sugar: And what you're saying actually very much supports what I'll be talking more about later.

Frode Stenstrøm: We'll come back to that.

Then we move from equipment to courses

Aud-Katrin Sugar: Yes, we have touched on that a little already—that it is important for everyone to understand why they are attending the course. The courses must be tailored and include plenty of practical exercises. And again, we are very often told that there is too little time to practise and too little time to click around and explore.

Frode Stenstrøm: Yes, and, well, I think the most expensive thing we can do is bring people together

in one place, because then they are taken out of production and have to sit through it, and there may also be travel and many other such costs involved. I believe that time should be spent on as much practice as possible.

Aud-Katrin Sugar: Yes.

Frode Stenstrøm: With as little theory as possible.

Aud-Katrin Sugar: Yes, yes, that's supported. Very much in agreement

Frode Stenstrøm: Then there’s the practical side: how do you ensure that the necessary expertise is in place? A loaded term, but that’s how I put it.

Aud-Katrin Sugar: Yes, what you mean is: How do you ensure that they are actually able to put what they have been taught during the course into practice?

Frode Stenstrøm: Yes.

Aud-Katrin Sugar: And that isn't always very easy to do, so therefore because But during a course, people will have picked up on different things.

You and I don’t necessarily take in the same things when we attend a course—you listen to the first ten minutes, and I listen to the next ten. So you need a plan to make absolutely sure that everyone actually gets started. There are many different ways of learning, so those who didn’t learn as well during the course or for whom that format wasn’t a good fit might receive some individual instruction through one-on-one training, or otherwise be given the support they need.

I also tend to say that it’s important to schedule some training sessions in Outlook, so that you actually have to decline them. Follow up closely. Make sure everyone is seen.

Frode Stenstrøm: I also have one more observation from the courses I’ve taught myself: it’s a really terrible process if the course is held in January and the users or participants won’t be using the system until perhaps May, because too much time passes before they start doing the work.

So the timing of the courses is important to you in terms of when the system will actually be used.

Aud-Katrin Sugar: That was very well put. Ideally, they should start using the new system the day after completing the course—and certainly no more than a week later.

Frode Stenstrøm: And then there’s the success measurement. I don’t think hardly anyone does that.

Aud-Katrin Sugar: No

Frode Stenstrøm: If anyone does, I would like to know about it.

Aud-Katrin Sugar: We have created a simple setup where we combine the hard facts—you can go into the system and see how much it has been used, how many quotes have been created, how many customer service cases we have handled, how long it has taken, and all those kinds of things.

But we combine that with... Subjective feedback in the form of a questionnaire. So if someone says, “No, I don’t use the system that much; it doesn’t help me,” and that differs from what you would expect based on how many people have logged in, you can take action to address it.

And you should also be able to measure against the KPIs established by the company. But I have to say, it’s not often—though every now and then, someone actually does have some KPIs, which makes it particularly easy to measure. You should perhaps carry out that combination of objective and subjective measurements every quarter so that you can track progress.

Frode Stenstrøm: Perhaps we should do that, yes. But we’ve now talked about the planning process, strategy, and the plan. Now we’re going to talk a little about how learning actually takes place. This may be familiar to many, but it’s still worth discussing, as it is a prerequisite for the planning work and the method we use. And then you have the 10-20-70 model—or, as I put it in reverse order, 70-20-10.

Aud-Katrin Sugar: Yes, a great many people agree that you learn about 10% of what you need to learn in the classroom. And when I come to you, Frode, and say, “You know what, I didn’t understand that. Can you show me again?”, that accounts for 20% of the learning, while 70% of the learning actually comes from the time spent practising, trying things out and training.

What is a little surprising is that a great deal of energy, money, and time is spent planning the 10 percent—for example, classroom courses—while almost no time or money is spent planning the 70 percent, even though we know that this is where most of the learning takes place.

Frode Stenstrøm: Yes, it’s actually quite fascinating to see.

Aud-Katrin Sugar: Yes, and that is part of what I emphasize somewhat in the training plan,

Frode Stenstrøm: That’s just the reality of life. It often means that you spend a lot of time on it, and I think that’s partly because most projects are considered an investment cost. Then funds are allocated, but they only cover 10 percent.

But when the project is finished, people move on to new tasks and new projects, and then, well.

Aud-Katrin Sugar: Yes, and it’s very easy to blame clients—for example, saying I have to work with a client, I have to do something else—and then working out becomes what I call something that keeps getting pushed back. Yes.

Frode Stenstrøm: So, we're going to talk a little about our approach to one.

Now we've gone through the strategy, the plan, the process, and things like that. So now we'll talk a little about it and how we work with this.

Aud-Katrin Sugar: Yes, we take a fairly structured approach, so when we run a course, the classroom course should be built around a manageable number of things to learn during the day, divided into sequences. For each sequence, it is very important to make absolutely sure that everyone understands what they are supposed to learn at that particular point,

Something along the lines of selling the idea: Why is it so useful to search the database to find your customers?

It is a very basic example, but you have to be absolutely sure that everyone understands what they are supposed to learn. Then you explain the principle. When you are creating a report, you first have to identify what it should be based on, then select what you want to create, and then create a filter. In other words, you explain in prose how it works in the system before explaining the principle.

Before explaining the process

Frode Stenstrøm: Sorry, I was a little too quick with the PowerPoint button there

Aud-Katrin Sugar: That was good. And the process is also somewhat schematic—when you’re creating a report, you first have to do this, then you have to do that, and then you have to do the next thing, with 6–7 steps. So it’s a recipe. And my challenge is that I work with many consultants who love the solution and the fields, and the further down into the system they get, the more interesting it becomes.

So I spend a lot of time keeping them from showing anything in the solution and making absolutely sure that the groundwork is in place before they are actually allowed to bring up and demonstrate the solution.

Frode Stenstrøm: Then I finally got the timing right...

Aud-Katrin Sugar: And then you can show them, and what's so great is that you get to review everything. Remember when we talked about creating a report? What was the first thing we had to do? Well, we had to do this and that, so then you get to review it for the third time, in a different way.

And then there’s practice, and you have to be willing to go through the exercises. It often feels like it takes a little extra time, but it never hurts to find out that you’ve done it correctly, and questions often come up when you’re working on exercises. I’ve also included the break, because breaks are very important for allowing you to reset a little before the next topic, and a break should never be shorter than ten minutes. A five-minute break just doesn’t work.

Frode Stenstrøm: It’ll be ten minutes no matter what. It’ll be ten minutes to a quarter of an hour, and then you have to go outside, walk around, and come back down. That’s right.

Aud-Katrin Sugar: So our method isn't exactly based on any new research, but it's what I find works best.

Frode Stenstrøm: Yes, we haven't reinvented the wheel; we use the research that's available.

Aud-Katrin Sugar: And this is then reflected in the instructor guide. What do we want people to understand? How should we explain the principle? How should the process be demonstrated, and so on?

Frode Stenstrøm: Then we'll talk a little about e-learning or the use of these electronic tools. So, a brief slide on that.

Aud-Katrin Sugar: Yes, I have to say that I’m rather proud that my first e-learning project was 25 years ago, when Telenor moved to Fornebu, and all the training was to be conducted through e-learning, whether it was how to adjust your desk or how to use the case management system.

Frode Stenstrøm: My mother was involved in that relocation project.

Aud-Katrin Sugar: Right? Yes, that shows you where the paths cross, or whatever it's called.

Frode Stenstrøm: That was Per Kveim's biggest customer at the time, who was our general manager.

Aud-Katrin Sugar: I think e-learning is a great supplement to other traditional training.

We use it a lot before courses to cover the basics and make absolutely sure that everyone starts the course with the same level of competence. That way, we can use the valuable time you mentioned for what really matters: explaining processes and how to work, rather than spending a lot of time showing people where the Save button and the New button are.

Anyone can learn that on their own. So it’s excellent for things like that. It’s also very useful as course support, because a lot gets forgotten, and then you can refer back to it and review it. It can also replace these navigation guides. The reason I mentioned the navigation guides is that not everyone loves e-learning.

Frode Stenstrøm: No, quite a lot. Yes, I helped launch an e-learning course just before Christmas, and the response was a bit mixed, with both thumbs up and thumbs down.

Aud-Katrin Sugar: Yes, but as I said, there are a whole host of ways to learn, so it’s good to have several different arenas for teaching. E-learning rarely gets grumpy or tired, never needs to sleep, and is always available.

You can very easily add frequently asked questions there. You ensure that everyone receives the same training and learns the same things in the same way. And you can also ensure that it establishes a best-practice way of working. So I’m very, very fond of e-learning, combined with other training.

Frode Stenstrøm: One useful thing to mention here is that we process pilots, together with you and your team, have developed quite a few basic courses on the Dynamics products, which means we can get a course up and running for you and your colleagues fairly quickly.

Without having to start completely from scratch every time.

Aud-Katrin Sugar: Yes, absolutely. The Save button is the same every time.

Frode Stenstrøm: Yes, and many of the sales processes are the same, even though the products may be slightly different. Sales are sales.

Aud-Katrin Sugar: We adapt that; that's the benefit of explaining the concept, the key points, and the principles instead of jumping straight into a demo.

Frode Stenstrøm: No, that's exactly it. So just contact us if you'd like training, and we can tailor our basic courses to your company, saving you quite a lot of time compared to creating them yourself. We've spent quite a few hours developing those courses.

Aud-Katrin Sugar: Yes, and that's something we could have discussed.

Frode Stenstrøm: So it's a sales effort...

Contact us, and we'll sort this out for you. But what about the implementation method?

Aud-Katrin Sugar: Yes, then it’s a never-ending cycle.

Frode Stenstrøm: Okay.

Aud-Katrin Sugar: Yes, we recommend that everyone take a basic e-learning course for each subject they need, whether that’s customer service, sales, or whatever it may be.

Mm-hmm.

Aud-Katrin Sugar: And then there are classroom courses, which I’ll never give up on. They’re the best—preferably not on Teams.

And then they have to practise, and that has to be organised—that's where 70 per cent of the learning takes place. They can also use the e-learning to look things up if there is anything they need to check. New employees start with the e-learning, and if new things are being introduced, e-learning materials are created for those as well. And that's how it works now, in a cycle.

Frode Stenstrøm: When we talked about strategy at the beginning, I thought it was interesting to consider where to allocate the money. We know that practice is essential—that is perfectly clear—so I believe the most important part of the planning strategy is to allocate the largest share of the budget to that. Then the balance between e-learning and classroom courses can be assessed.

I think some things can be simple enough that a basic website is sufficient to explain how the solution works, or the information can be incorporated into course materials. But some things require a great deal of understanding, in which case direct instruction with an instructor guiding you may be appropriate.

Aud-Katrin Sugar: Yes, but that’s kind of my mantra: once you’ve taught the basic concept and how it works, it’s not that difficult to introduce new things as you go along.

Frode Stenstrøm: Exactly.

Aud-Katrin Sugar: Because one of the things we consider when teaching is that people should learn to reason their way to the answer themselves.

Frode Stenstrøm: Exactly.

Aud-Katrin Sugar: Yes, in the assignments they’re given a problem, and then they have to figure out for themselves how to solve it. They’re not told, “Do this, do this, do this.”

Frode Stenstrøm: No

Aud-Katrin Sugar: No

Frode Stenstrøm: And so, this is our implementation method, you could say, and then we move on to follow-up and ensuring competence.

Yes.

And I know you had a few points there.

Aud-Katrin Sugar: Yes.

I think we touched on that briefly earlier.

Frode Stenstrøm: Yes, but it’s actually a method I’ve used myself a few times. I’ve sort of called it the 10-10-10 method.

Aud-Katrin Sugar: That sounds like interval training.

Frode Stenstrøm: Yes, it’s almost like interval training. But the idea is that you take ten questions and cover them over ten weeks in ten minutes.

And I’ve done this for a number of clients, where you can often anticipate in advance which questions will arise in the case management application. The case management team then sets aside ten minutes of its case meeting each week for ten weeks, addressing one question at a time and spending ten minutes answering it—either in Teams or with their team. Because when the manager shows an interest in the topic over such a long period, the employees don’t start thinking that it was just a passing fad that will fade away again. This helps maintain momentum for the change.

Aud-Katrin Sugar: Yes, and tie it into the fact that today we're going to work on enriching the data for all your contacts. And that's the topic—this is how you do it. This is how you find everyone who is missing an email address. This is how you find everyone who isn't linked to a company.

And then the next day, the topic is something else. And suddenly, we may have created some new views, reports, charts, or something like that. That can be the topic when there is actually something new. And if we see that people aren't very good at tracking emails, we'll go over that. It's important for it to be very practical, and for those investing their time to genuinely feel that it's worth their while; otherwise, they won't bother.

Frode Stenstrøm: And there is another aspect that I see working for us here in our own company: after all, we use the technologies we sell. But we see that when, for example, the management team meets on Tuesday morning and looks at the report for the previous week and the forecast for the next, it is based on the data that the sales team enters into Dynamics.

And in a way, the fact that it is actually used has a somewhat disciplining effect. If no managers cared about what you enter, no one would bother entering it either.

Aud-Katrin Sugar: And what you're saying is so important, and it relates to what we started out talking about: buy-in at every level.

Frode Stenstrøm: And what that means in practice

Aud-Katrin Sugar: It’s very important for me to see that when I spend a lot of time putting things into a system, they actually get used for something

And then, as I said, the teacher in me knows that there will always be individuals who need extra help, and it’s important to identify them and help them so they can become part of the team.

It has quite a significant impact on the atmosphere.

Frode Stenstrøm: Now we’re going to talk a little about course materials. We’ve already touched on that. We’ve talked about the instructor guide, PowerPoint, and e-learning, so the process we discussed earlier is essentially the one described under course materials. Is there anything else you’d like to say about course materials when we work on them?

Anything specific, you mean?

Aud-Katrin Sugar: No, nothing other than that it takes quite a lot of time to create good instructor guides, but that is also where the value lies: you get it back through versatility, by being able to reuse them, use parts of them, and ensure that everyone receives the same training.

Frode Stenstrøm: And, not least, evaluate them so that you can improve them. From what I see at the training center where I work, whenever we run a course, we conduct an evaluation afterward and see

who understood and who didn't.

Because you’re creating a course guide that you think will resonate, but you don’t always know your audience. No. And then you actually have to evaluate the course guide—and the instructor guide as well—and see whether it needs to be rewritten, depending on whether someone is a complete beginner or has many years of experience.

And often, it’s also a matter of unlearning a method, and those who know how to do things very precisely in their own way don’t see any reason to change it.

Aud-Katrin Sugar: And that is one of the pitfalls we have identified—not switching off the old system, as you just mentioned. But where have my navigation sheets gone?

Frode Stenstrøm: The navigation sheets may have been left out.

Aud-Katrin Sugar: They have fallen off

That was then.

Frode Stenstrøm: That was before. But with that, we'll give a brief recap of what we've covered today, as mentioned, in today's broadcast.

First, we talked about the critical success factors for achieving... Good user adoption, and thus change management. We talked a little about the training strategy, the planning work you can refer to, the process you should follow in your own organization, and a little about how learning takes place. We also talked a little about the approach we use, which is based not on things we have made up ourselves, but on research, and how we follow these processes so that we can also succeed when helping you and your company with user adoption.

Aud-Katrin Sugar: I have a little analogy that I simply have to share, and it involves my running shoes.

Frode Stenstrøm: Haven't you already used that one?

Aud-Katrin Sugar: No, we haven't talked about the sneakers.

Frode Stenstrøm: Huh? It’s here for a motivation course and practice

Aud-Katrin Sugar: Yes, it is. Because I say it’s as simple as when you’ve decided to get fit. Yes. Then you’re motivated to get fit.

You go to the store to buy yourself some new shoes, and the salesperson explains how they work and what is suitable for your needs. Then you go home and watch some YouTube videos about interval training, workouts, and things like that. So by then, you have completed the course, but you will not get fit until you put the shoes on and use them—and that accounts for 70 percent.

Frode Stenstrøm: And that’s why we have the final slide today, which is about motivation, courses, and, not least, the practical aspects of it. And I also think, when you talk about training, Aud, that I’m not so concerned about whether people actually work out, as long as they show up, because that’s when they experience a sense of achievement and have somewhere to start.

And then there’s the last thing we’re going to talk about in today’s broadcast: this takes time. We’re talking about people, not machines, and people take the time they need to learn.

Aud-Katrin Sugar: I've heard of very, very, very many projects where people come home after a year or so, and then say that it's only now—only now—that they feel they've fully achieved their goal, so it takes a long time.

Frode Stenstrøm: Yes, but that also means it is important, as we discussed earlier regarding the training strategy, to allocate time for it in the plans. People who are overworked and may not have time to think about anything at all do not have time to learn anything new either.

So you have to ease off the gas a little, and perhaps get more out of it in the long run.

Aud-Katrin Sugar: Absolutely essential. Frode Stenstrøm: We have a fantastic analytics team that can help you with artificial intelligence, insight analysis, and data analytics platforms. And a collaboration team that can create new websites, customer clubs, customer portals, mobile apps, and Teams applications. And AI agents. Next week, we’ll also be hosting a very exciting webinar with Yuliia, where she’ll demonstrate how we can use Power BI and Dynamics together.