Where does End-User Training Fall Within ITIL?

[cubist]

Having been asked to redefine an IT organizational structure, i've begun reading IT best-practices framework such as ITIL and COBiT. i was wondering what ITIL role and processes does end-user training (and trainors) of business applications (e.g., POS. inventory management, MS Office, etc.) belong? i was thinking release management, but isn't that area focused more on the logistics of deployment.

I have created two groups under the IT department--IT Development (for in-house application development) and IT Services (for the support & operations side).

I'm thinking whether i should be creating a training group.

[cubist]

should it be part of application management? and instead of creating a development group, a broader application management group could be created.

[rjp]

How you accomodate training will depend on how large you are.

If you are big enough to have an inhouse IT training unit - then training should probably be a professional service in your Catalogue and planned, delivered and assessed as a service. It would then be produced in cooperation with systems development (who are outside the ITSM blue and red book proccesses, but overlap with ITILs Application managment).
It would be planned and coordiated with Release Managmenet (or at least Chnage if Release isn't in place.)

If you have an non IT in house training unit, or use an outsourced trainer, it still has to be managed as above, you'll need their facilities, skills, pre-production inputs, etc.

Remeber the work - techncial writing, media production, event the preparation training environments on the target system and sample scenarios and data set, is not covered by ITIL any more than how to configure a firewall is.

And the development prepartion and production of training materials, cirricula etc, will require project managment methodology - and should be included in the project for mmajor systems.

But if you can define and deliver it as an IT Service, ITIL should be able to help you manage it.

Also, if your incident managment and service desk implementation isn't myopically locked into break/fix workflow, the data they are collecting should help you identify productivity gaps in the end-user community, which need to be addressed by training.

This is a sometimes overlooked possibility for the ITSM support processes: If you get a collection of incidents around a particular application, that are actaully being caused by end-user not understanding how to use it, you can raise a problem on those incidents where the root cause would be insufficient training, (if you wanted to be cute you could log those clients as faulty CIs in the Known Erors database - so ITIL even can accomodate PBKAC incidents - Problem between keyboard and chair ) The RFC would be directed to the development of a new or updated training program for them.

[Epr64]

It is under Release Management, just before the roll-out (section 9.6.5 of service support).
Don't expect too much explanations from the Service Support book, though .

Regards.

Y

[rams]

This is an interesting topic. How to align/manage/deliver training with ITIL. Should it be part of change management process where change management/CAB would look into training aspect of each changes or releases.

What about availability management to ensure there are enough ‘trained’ resources available to provide the support. There are instances when user is given new tool to use or existing tool is modified with new functionality, we managed the service delivery and support but what about training to the user and customers? How about training the trainers..etc.?

[jpomales]

I don't think that end-user training falls into any of the main ITIL disciplines. The Service Desk can certainly aid in identifying the need for training, but as far as coordination, creation, purchasing and provisioning appropriate for the application to be implemented I think the responsibility falls into the applicable business area for which the application will be implemented.

Regards,
_________________
audentes fortuna juvat

[UrgentJensen]

Hi,

I think that you're probably all right to a degree, we can see project/release related training is fairly clear cut.

As for training support, well sure you can offer training as a second line support function, but the main problem with offering this is measuring the impact of the training.

Sometimes it's a simple 'how to' question but sometimes the lack of knowledge may be endemic within the organisation and may have implications on factors that may impact staff skills, e.g. quality of recruitment, line management style, process awareness.

The traditional methods for measuring training do not generally allow you to measure performance or even just basic effectiveness, what format training should you offer? 1-2-1? Classroom based group training? Which is better, when and why? And of course, being managers we all know that all this therefore leads to having cost implications, which currently may be shielded from you.

There are different arguements on how and why we should offer training and depending on which one you go for this may or may not fall into your ITIL approach.

Regards,

Urgent