IT people...

quarky

We are rolling out Office365, and providing user training via a MOOC (Massive Open Online Course platform). Our IT ops team want to be sent on dedicated classroom training. They won't need to do any administration at all (it is all done via a third party), we are just talking Word, Excel, PowerPoint, just like the previous versions. 

I suggested online training via the Microsoft Virtual Academy, Udemy, Pluralsight, etc, (we have never had to training our IT staff on previous Office upgrades) but no, they are demanding training courses. Or technically, the managers are.

Is it just me or are these guys (the managers) just fucking idiots?

Honestly, I think we need to fire 7/10th's of the department and start again.

Ravenous

Tell them to find some third party who does the training and shop for prices.

What I suspect is really going on, is they don't like the fact that "someone" is dumping cheap software on them.  (I assume Office365 is being selected as it's cheap or free.)

To be fair the Ops guys may have a point - they don't want to be responsible for some cheap crap they didn't choose.  You probably need to convince them the stuff is decent quality, secure, etc...

quarky

They have had three years to prepare for O365 and Windows 10, and did fuck all. So it is being basically forced on them (we can't stay on Office 2010 (actually mixes of O2007, O2010, and O2013, mixed in with O2016 components on the same devices) because we are moving to Exchange Online) because they were asleep at the wheel.

Their training request is for SIX classroom courses on various things for every member of "third line". Actually, more than six, (eight I think) but I excluded the vendor provided stuff that is free.

I guess it is just frustrating when I haven't had any training provided for years (my recent VMware and AWS stuff I paid for myself and did in my own time), and I am responsible for the technical designs for a lot of the recent work which is required to sort the shit out. And I did it without spending a month a year in a classroom.

What happened to initiative? What happened to self-improvement?

Vaiai

Ravenous said:

Tell them to find some third party who does the training and shop for prices.

What I suspect is really going on, is they don't like the fact that "someone" is dumping cheap software on them.  (I assume Office365 is being selected as it's cheap or free.)

To be fair the Ops guys may have a point - they don't want to be responsible for some cheap crap they didn't choose.  You probably need to convince them the stuff is decent quality, secure, etc...

Office 365 is the full MS Office Suite and email - it's not cheap crap and not free - it consists of the full Office 2016 Suite, Sharepoint Online, One Drive etc
No need for classroom training to use it - MVA or Pluralsight is plenty - they are being dicks We deploy this to thousands of users in public and private sector - in most cases the end user doesn't see much difference and a few vids or tutorials are enough to use it.

Vaiai

Hang on, if you say 3rd line - do you mean server engineers and apps guys/senior IT? If so they really are having a laugh - they could use 365 in their sleep! Sounds like they are not happy it's all moving to the cloud - tell them to go on Azure training courses instead and get with the program
We see this sort of resistance all the time

bodhi

quarky said:

...I guess it is just frustrating when I haven't had any training provided for years...

Maybe they're frustrated by the same thing but for different reasons, and it's reached the point where straws are breaking camel backs?

Where I work (it's actually a nice company and I still enjoy it) I've had one online "training course" in 2006, which took me 30 minutes to complete.  Last year I had a 3-day classroom based training course which was rather cheap and cheerful.  That's the sum total of training I've been given in the 13 years I've worked for the company.

I'm the only fully qualified member of the team (which I did on my own steam before the kids arrived - I've had little hope of any significant self improvement since).  The rest were supposed to watch DVD-based training courses and become MCSAs and/or MCSEs at one point some years ago.  I told my manager the DVD courses looked like crap and wouldn't work, but no.  Between the 5 of them, one guy managed to pass 2 exams.  The rest failed every single exam (some multiple times) and soon enough the whole initiative was swept under the carpet never to be spoken of again.

It's pretty bad for morale in the long run.

But somehow we still manage to keep the boat afloat (I think because we're a tightly knit team and get along really well).  Takes a lot of googling some days, though.

Your situation sounds like perhaps there's a bigger issue than just a new version of Office.

CHRISB50

Offer the most expensive classroom training you can find. Then get them to sign a contract that will keep them there for a reasonable amount of time. If they leave in that time they pay the cost of the training in full.

I bet they won't want it then. 

quarky

Vaiai said:

Hang on, if you say 3rd line - do you mean server engineers and apps guys/senior IT? If so they really are having a laugh - they could use 365 in their sleep! Sounds like they are not happy it's all moving to the cloud - tell them to go on Azure training courses instead and get with the program
We see this sort of resistance all the time

Yep, that is what I thought. If these people can't cope with online learning, they shouldn't be third line. Arguably, IT isn't even the best place for them. None of the team leaders really have any understanding of the cloud either, so that is definitely part of it. One of the managers actually said last year "I don't know why you focus on the cloud and automation so much. We have no need for it and won't ever use it."

Vaiai said:
they are being dicks We deploy this to thousands of users in public and private sector - in most cases the end user doesn't see much difference and a few vids or tutorials are enough to use it.

Yeah, that sums up my thoughts on it too. One of our other sites migrated a few months ago, and didn't even do any user training either, they just got on with it.

CHRISB50 said:

Offer the most expensive classroom training you can find. Then get them to sign a contract that will keep them there for a reasonable amount of time. If they leave in that time they pay the cost of the training in full.

I bet they won't want it then. 

I love that idea. I am going to suggest it tomorrow.

mudslide73

O365 is designed for end users. We're still on full products for Office and I only offer support when users run into problems - none of us have ever had any training. It sounds like they want it so they can move on imo. I'd love some training of any kind though. 

bodhi

Actually, this doesn't quite make sense to me.

They had 3 years to prepare for Office 365...
They won't have to do any admin as it's all done by a 3rd party...
They want 6 training courses on various "things"...

What are those things and how exactly are they involved before, during, and after the O365 rollout?

Granted, if "we are just talking Word, Excel, PowerPoint", then I don't see the point of a whole bunch of training courses.  But it sounds like the whole thing might be more complicated than that, including whatever the definition of "third line" is in this case.

DrCornelius

Since we moved to Office 365 I don't think I've had to do half as much IT support , third lin or otherwise. It's a piece of piss to administer, you don't need to worry about backups or server patches or any of that stuff.

Office 2016 has a few cool features but I'm guessing 99 pct of staff will just use the features they are used to from older versions so I can't see any support issues there. Finally as someone mentioned , Google is your friend - I can't believe that's frowned upon by anyone but old school nerds who have too much time on their hands. It's as valid to me as flicking through a 600 manual but quicker !

Myranda

We have been upgrading to Windows 10 over the last couple of weeks.

Term starts very soon and in real terms we have a week until hundreds of students pour into our labs...

Our technical lab is currently sitting at 1/80 working machines and we might need to cannibalise another lab because of the update method we're forced to use.

One of the dual boot images connects to a separate vlan with no access to any other network access - which means no update server, no deployment servers,  nothing... And our previous capture methods didn't work so we were experimenting until yesterday. 

Deployment of W10 was planned for summer, but management held back until now... In labs which do connect to servers for easy updates serve hammered the network infrastructure so much we have three switches that have failed in our patch panel room so far... I'm sure this won't be a problem in a week  

Maybe management can go to courses and let the staff get on with things? 

Axe_meister

I actually prefer classroom training. It's a dedicated environment to a teacher to hand in case of questions I find I switch off with online training and start doing other stuff in the background.

TheBigDipper

I'm old enough to still call on-line courses "self study". My personal experience was there's nothing wrong with them for technical topics if they're well written. You do need dedicated time out to do them and it should be away from your normal workplace so youdon't get interrupted.

They can help you to learn how to do things in one specific way. What they can't do so well is help you have a discussion when there are several solutions to a problem, one of which might be the best for your organisation. They can't facilitate discussions between other delegates about each other's workplaces. There can be value in that cross-fertilisation. 

if there's some planning to be done after you've completed the course, then classroom training is often better and well worth the investment in time and money. 

If the IT support team can't follow a self study course to learn use O365 products from the perspective of an end user, you have to question their abilities and/or motives... Maybe they'd like to be the third party company doing the admin work next time - perhaps as their own bosses for a client organisation - and are looking for someone to pay for their training that would allow them to put qualifications next to their names?

For better or worse, one of the benefits  of O365 is to reduce the amount of IT admin you do with your own people, not increase it.

quarky

bodhi said:

Actually, this doesn't quite make sense to me.

They had 3 years to prepare for Office 365...
They won't have to do any admin as it's all done by a 3rd party...
They want 6 training courses on various "things"...

What are those things and how exactly are they involved before, during, and after the O365 rollout?

Granted, if "we are just talking Word, Excel, PowerPoint", then I don't see the point of a whole bunch of training courses.  But it sounds like the whole thing might be more complicated than that, including whatever the definition of "third line" is in this case.

Fair comment. Windows 10 has been available in production for, what, two years, and available for testing for a year before that. O365, even longer. The fact that we would need to move to Window 10 (and O365) should have been obvious to anyone, but it was talked about early on, as were the changes that were required. Exchange has been managed externally for more than those three years too, with a clear understanding that they (head office) won't stand still, but will continue to expand, extend, and roll out new functionality to the back-end as well as our O365 tenant. No one in IT should have been surprised at having to upgrade W10 and O365. So there should be no excuses really. Failure to investigate distribution methods, and servicing methods for both is a failure. Failure to do any testing, even in pilot, is a failure. Failure to prepare the environment for upgrading (by doing relatively basic stuff like upgrading the W8 machines to 8.1, patching W7, is a failure. Failure to attempt to bring the environment to a more uniform platform (similar versions of Office, similar patch levels, similar OS levels) is a failure. There are fundamental things that should be done in terms of maintaining the environment, that are just not done. Maybe I am being harsh, but I have been looking at these things since before they were released, so I would expect the teams who are apparently responsible for maintaining the environment, and looking at new technology, to do the same. Similarly, the servers are not patched, the management software is not updated. These are people who generally have no idea what something ilke Nano server is, even as a concept (one of the managers refuses to remove GUIs from server VMs because he RDPs to them to do administration). Very little is actually maintained. And it isn't a resource issue.

Admin for O365 isn't done by us. We don't need to add users, change the configuration on the portal, etc. 

There is also a VMware project going on (it has taken almost a year and the basic cluster and vCenter isn't even built yet), so they want at least three VMware training courses (even though we have run VMware for a long time, maybe a decade), as well as course on the underlying network technology, as well as Windows Server and desktop components.

So yeah, we are actually talking about just the office components. These guys will not need to do *anything* complex with Office365.

bodhi

DrCornelius said:

Finally as someone mentioned , Google is your friend - I can't believe that's frowned upon by anyone but old school nerds who have too much time on their hands. It's as valid to me as flicking through a 600 manual but quicker !

True.  One thing you have to become good at to survive is problem solving.  But it would be nice to actually know something about that new thing you're expected to support before it starts hiccupping, and not neglect its caring and feeding (of which Office 365 doesn't need very much at all) while you're chasing the next latest and greatest.

I won't even mention being handed over a "completed" project which wasn't implemented properly, and having to unpick it first.  That adds a whole new level of pain in the butt.

My point is that IMHO it is very short sighted of companies to not invest in providing their IT staff with decent and ongoing training.  It doesn't do anyone any good, and the whole self improvement concept is fine if you're fortunate enough to have the spare time, which was instantly wiped out the day our kids arrived.  I'd have to self improve between 9PM and 6AM, but frankly I'd rather try and get in some sleep and let tomorrow's googling happen when it happens.

My saving grace is my direct manager, who worked himself up into a management position, hasn't lost track of what it actually requires to get the job done, and doesn't mind getting his hands dirty when the need arises.  He is very good at managing the managers, goes to all the meetings, then comes back and we work out what we actually realistically need to do to ensure successful implementation (while still keeping a handle on all the existing stuff), and then we get on with it as best we can.

But I'm on holiday this week, so I'll be lying on the couch in my vest and underpants all day long, in any case.  That's all the self improvement I have the energy for.

Col_Decker

We had Odffice356 at my old place, I was a trained 'super user' so I was resposnible for training the peeps in office. The training consisted of showing them how to log in, and how print out (it goes via .pdf). After that its pretty much 'just fucking do it'

RandallFlagg

I liked the book and looking forward to seeing the new film...

:-)

celentium

I used self study to teach myself test automation (Java + Selenium) within 9 months of getting my Software Testing role. If your end users aren't insisting on classroom training, I don't see why your engineers should get it. Especially when the administration is minimal.

PolarityMan

Is it possible that the training is more about rogue access databases and excel spreadsheets full of horrendous vb script having become critical systems?

If not then yeah I agree, who needs training on office?

quarky

I don't think so, O365 seems to have good backwards compatibility with macros especially, but they don't support them anyway, the business do.

Today they agreed to drop the demand for classroom training. Maybe when they figured out that the rest of the training was coming in a £13k+/person, they didn't want to jeopardize the rest of it. Absolutely stinks though when those on the first line haven't had any training for years.