UDFS Communications/Training Team Minutes

January 27, 2003

 

In Attendance: Amy Taylor, Tim Miller, Chris Murphy, Chris Cook, Dee Smith, Michelle Broadway, Ellen Lepine, Lisa Huber, Ginger Knutsen, Linda Somers, Peggy Bottorff, Bill Fitzpatrick, Dave McCarren, Steve Grasson.

 

Minutes this Time: Amy Taylor

Minutes Next Time: Peggy Bottorff

 

Readiness Course:

Peggy reminded everyone to send her the name of who they have invited to the 2/3/03 first demo run of the Readiness Training Course, and to send any feedback to her, which she will collate. Also, please make any notes explicit and clear as possible to help others who will use the presentation in the future.

 

Dave established a separate meeting time on Thursday, 2/29 for those who can go over the presentation on last time to refine the notes and slides. 

 

Training Plan Review:

Team members were asked to document how they will implement the training plan for their units. They were encouraged to communicate with each other to share resources if possible. These plans do not have to be submitted to Peggy in the short-term, but they can be shared with others on the communication team.  Peggy will collect them at a point in the future so there is documentation about how training was planned.

 

Peggy updated the plan document as the session progressed. What follows are general notes and comments made during the conversation, (specific line changes to the document are not noted)

 

Basic training groups of up to 15 people from similar units will be conducted at a computing site, where each sits at there own terminal, with individual training databases, walking through the screens.

 

There was discussion about getting General Accounting more involved in the development of the training as they will be taking over that section post implementation.

 

Basic training was estimated to be one class, up to ˝ day in length.  Procurement training would be separate.

 

Space allocation for the basic training classes:  Ellen is still looking for an appropriate space.  There are web access issues, training database issues, and availability issues.  No confirmed details at this time.

 

There was general discussion about the material versus the development of a training network.  The group identified a need to begin using the new language of PS in order for people to become more familiar with it.

 

Procurement training – Tory is working on her plan (similar to the training tiers) she will notify the communications team with details. Peggy will request preliminary information from Tory as the team may want to preview, in case there is a need to coordinate the two in any way.

 

Query Writers – The Reports Team draft of Query Class is done. Peggy has sent it off to IT for review and polish.  It will then be ready for the communications team. There was discussion about how to offer the class: in groups with a presenter, as a self-paced web tutorial or both.

 

Training databases will be necessary so that each person in the group training gets results that are predictable and the same every time.  This is still in development.

 

“Play” databases are similar to training databases, but the results are not predictable or the same because there are many people who are in one database.

 

Ellen and Peggy will discuss these options further with Rick McCauley.

 

It was noted that the Communication Team and the Report Team will not be able to train people on Crystal or nVision.  The Executive is still making decisions about who needs training on these advanced tools.

 

Labor Allocation Module:  There was brief discussion about how to get it ready for BTA, with questions referred to Carol Rylee.  Peggy will invite her to attend the 2/10/03 meeting. The communication team hopes to see a demo and have training in time for BTA.