68 CHAPTER 4: MANAGING STANDARDS ■ Documenting What You’ve Found As you outline your processes and make decisions about 2D and 3D tools, it’s critical that you write down what you learn and change your standards accordingly. I think you’ll find that your CAD standards will need to be rewritten—and as CAD manager, that responsibility will fall to you. I recommend that you combine your existing CAD standards with some of your new multi-CAD standards findings, like optimal usage of 2D or 3D for a given process, 2D/3D interface points, and visualization tool file types. As you do so, keep these ideas in mind: Standards should support needs Your new CAD standards should support the new 2D/3D processes and software tools you’ve discussed with your power-user panel. Now isn’t the time to create new standards or complexities; write the minimal stan- dards required to support your needs. Standard should address 2D and 3D tools Be specific about which tasks will utilize what software tools, and make this part of your standards. It’s pointless to decide what software tool is best suited for a process if you don’t standardize the procedures for doing so. Control 3D just as you would 2D Just because you have 3D software tools doesn’t mean your users should be able to run roughshod over you and model things however they like. Write your 3D CAD standards the same way you would for 2D. Make it simple Although a multi-CAD environment may seem complicated, your stan- dards should make it seem simple. Period. Keep management in the loop Senior management probably doesn’t need to read every paragraph of your multi-CAD standard, but they should see an executive-level summary of what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. Standards Enforcement via Management In Chapter 3’s section “Explaining Standards to Management,” I talked about how to introduce the idea of standards to your management team. If you haven’t read this sec- tion of the book, do so now, because getting management to help you enforce CAD standards assumes that you’ve already introduced the idea of standards. The key concepts that management needs to understand are as follows: • Standards make processes consistent. • Consistency allows automation. • Automation saves time. • Time is money. • Therefore, standards save money. 16531c04.qxd 3/19/07 1:41 PM Page 68 69 ■ STANDARDS ENFORCEMENT VIA MANAGEMENT When management understands that your attempt to control the CAD work- place with standards can save them money, they’ll become interested in the concept! If you don’t believe me on this point, go to management, explain the previous bullet items, and watch how the tone of your conversation changes. Now you should connect the lack of standards compliance in your office to a loss of money. In essence, you need to give management sample cases where poor standards led to lost money. Here are a few examples you can use as a starting point: Printing/plotting problems Bring up an example of how plotting various sets of draw- ings took hours rather than minutes because layering, border, and color standards weren’t in place during the creation of drawing sets. Then, take a conservative estimate of wasted man-hours and multiply by your average hourly labor cost to get a valid cost number. Temporary labor problems How long does it take you to get a new temporary CAD technician up to speed on your drawing practices? How much is that costing in lost productivity for your company? Wouldn’t a firm set of CAD standards cut through all this uncertainty? You can demonstrate costs in this area by taking the number of train- ing hours it takes to orient a new employee times the labor rate times the number of new employees in a given year. If you use temporary labor, you may be able to justify CAD standardization on this cost savings alone. Lack of automation possibilities Which manual processes in your company (like plot- ting) could you automate if your CAD standards made all your drawings perfectly consistent? This is a powerful argument with upper management because automating mundane processes would allow their employees to do higher quality work (and more of it). Inconsistent look and feel Most CAD managers can produce several different sets of drawings done by different vendors, engineers, and drafters that don’t look anything alike. If you throw three drawings on a conference table in front of project/engineering management and confront them with this reality, they’ll see that standardization would produce a more uniform look for the company’s drawing product. Placing a dollar value on the look and feel issue is tough, but the psychology is a powerful motivator. Getting Help with Enforcement Now that management understands how CAD standards can enhance productivity and how much money they’re losing because of the lack of standards, you need to ask for their help in enforcing CAD standards. By asking for help, you send the message to management that you’re trying to save them money but that you need their political clout to do so. When management can save money, they’ll be willing to back you up. 16531c04.qxd 3/19/07 1:41 PM Page 69 70 CHAPTER 4: MANAGING STANDARDS ■ Figure 4.9 By placing management in the standards-enforcement loop and making their motivation financial,the CAD manager can focus on crafting optimal CAD standards instead of enforcement. Ask for help by making the following arguments to management: Users will listen to management Because the CAD manager isn’t the boss of most users, enforcement is lacking. When management speaks out on standards, everyone has to listen. All you need is management clout The CAD manager will formulate the standards, teach the standards, and enforce the standards. All upper management has to do is throw their support behind the CAD manager—no extra work is imposed on upper management. It’s the cheapest way to gain savings By helping the CAD manager enforce standards, the company can gain a great return on investment in terms of savings. You should leave the discussion with full management support to implement standards and the assurance that swift support for enforcement will be forthcoming if you experience any problems. Put out a memo to all users explaining management’s involvement in enforcement, or have a meeting with management present if need be. The point is that everyone should now know the vigor with which standards will be enforced. Take these steps, and watch how user adherence to standards changes for the better! Bringing It All Together Now that you’ve demonstrated how well standards can solve problems and make your company more efficient, don’t lose momentum. Talk with management and make sure they know the success you’re having with your new emphasis on standards. Don’t be bashful in advertising what you’ve been able to achieve, and be sure to point out any cost savings you’ve gained. Other Company (or department) Internal/External CAD Standard Management Enforcement (Financially Motivated) CAD Work (any platform) CAD Work (any platform) Your Company (or one department) Communication Barrier 16531c04.qxd 3/19/07 1:41 PM Page 70 71 ■ BRINGING IT ALL TOGETHER I’ve covered a tremendous amount of material in this chapter, but that’s because the topic of standards is complex. As with most things in CAD management, you need to balance the needs of your company against the realities of the environment you work in and do the best you can. By using the topics I’ve covered, you should be able to figure out what type of standards (vendor, client, multi-CAD) you need and then utilize the existing standards available to you (AIA, NCS) to craft a great first cut at a company standard. Moving forward, you should constantly re-evaluate your company’s needs and environment and revise your standards accordingly. CAD standards are never complete because processes and procedures around the office are always changing. Even if you totally standardize your company’s processes, sooner or later the software you use will change enough to trigger CAD standards changes. Stay on top of things, and never stop striving to build a better standard. 16531c04.qxd 3/19/07 1:41 PM Page 71 16531c04.qxd 3/19/07 1:41 PM Page 72 73 ■ TRAINING, HIRING, AND MANAGING USERS Training, Hiring, and Managing Users Probably nothing else you do determines your success more than the way you manage and train your CAD users. Even though the users you man- age and train may not always be your direct staff, you’re responsible for achieving the highest level of productivity possible for those users. You’ll also find, from time to time, that you need to manage their behavior even if they’re not under your direct charge. For example, enforcing stan- dards is one case in which you, the CAD man- ager, must lead, but not everybody who needs to follow those standards reports to you. 5 16531c05.qxd 3/19/07 1:42 PM Page 73 74 CHAPTER 5: TRAINING, HIRING, AND MANAGING USERS ■ When you have the responsibility for enforcing standards or processes but not the authority to do so, managing user behavior can be problematic. Absent enforce- ment authority to manage user behavior, training becomes the next best way to make users understand why they should follow CAD standards. Figure 5.1 The wide variety of users you’ll hire and manage means you need to constantly adjust and revise your training methods. Throughout this chapter, I’ll pass along tips about how I’ve used different train- ing methods and skills diagnostics to get my people to perform at a top level and, therefore, to ease the burden of managing them over time. Training Methodology Today, CAD managers have a wide variety of training methods at their disposal. No single method is better than any other except one: the school of hard knocks, which we’ll discuss later. I’ll address the various types of training methods in common use and explain each one’s strengths and weaknesses. You can draw your own conclusions about which methods make more sense for you based on your operating environment and your users: Method 1: Traditional classroom training In many cases, traditional classroom train- ing is a process in which you send your CAD users to an external training provider such as a CAD reseller. This method offers you the advantage of not having to perform the training yourself, thus preserving your time for other tasks. But it comes at a rela- tively high price. 16531c05.qxd 3/19/07 1:42 PM Page 74 75 ■ TRAINING METHODOLOGY Remember that whenever you send people to an external training class, the price includes not only what it costs to send them to the training but also the work time they miss. Because lost productivity is the number-one cost associated with external or classroom training, upper management may be skeptical about approving this method of training. Even when management does support classroom training, they will take keen note of user non-productivity while the class is run. Method 2: Leading your own in-house training As with the first method, when you conduct your own internal training classes, you have the traditional instructor–student paradigm in which you lead CAD users through a training program that you’ve prepared. What changes is that your specific knowledge of your users’ strengths and weaknesses should allow you to produce training that is highly targeted and minimally invasive with respect to the users’ time. While leading your in-house training, you’re responsible for producing training materials and for the instruction time. Users will lose productivity time just as they would if they were at an external classroom. The real advantage is that when you lead your own internal training, you can focus tightly on the topics that are being covered and produce that training in incremental chunks of time—not necessarily entire instruc- tional days, which helps users stay on schedule with regular work activities. Particular examples of in-house training methods are lunch-and-learns. In these one-hour sessions, information is delivered during a lunch break, thus converting employee spare time (lunch) into a training activity and keeping overhead low. Most management teams prefer this short-burst in-house training because of its minimal impact on employee time. It does take time for you to prepare materials for a lunch- and-learn, but the time regained by training users during their lunch keeps the overall cost to the company minimal. Method 3: Computer-based training Increasingly, this type of training is delivered via CD, DVD, or the Internet with some sort of interactive instruction. Students work through lessons at their own pace. These courses are usually indexed and divided into small chunks of learning, not exceeding 5 to 10 minutes each. They’re a good way for motivated users who will study on their own to learn material at a pace and on a time- line that makes sense for them, without any involvement from you. Because users can take computer-based training materials home with them, use them on lunch break, or use otherwise idle periods of time to train, little lost produc- tivity time is associated with computer-based training. Even in cases where a user trains during otherwise billable time, there is no instructor cost because the CAD manager doesn’t have to run the training. The only downside to computer-based training materials is that you, the CAD manager, can’t see how well the user is learning or what they’re having trouble with. But given the many benefits, computer-based training delivers great benefits; and you can always check in with a user to see how they’re doing after the fact. 16531c05.qxd 3/19/07 1:42 PM Page 75 76 CHAPTER 5: TRAINING, HIRING, AND MANAGING USERS ■ Figure 5.2 Different training methods work best in varying environments.Here’s a representation of which methods work best versus the structure required and sizes of groups being trained. Method 4: Traditional books and handout materials In this learning paradigm, the user is expected to pick up a book or custom-prepared handout and learn from it. My experience has shown that most users today are more receptive to computer-based training that allows them to watch the lesson, but some users learn well from written materials. Whether a user prefers books, handouts, or computer-based training is largely a matter of personal preference that you’ll need to observe to get an accurate gauge. However, written materials, whether you purchase them or produce them your- self, are a great adjunct to traditional classroom training. For example, if you run a lunch-and-learn on a specific topic, you should probably supplement that class with some sort of written material to reinforce your instruction. The important aspect of traditional printed materials is that the user can take them away from the training to reference as needed later. Even in cases where you don’t train users directly from written materials, you should still use them to cross-reference or rein- force other training. Note: Publish your training handouts in a secure digital form like Adobe PDF,and place them in a net- work location available to all users.That way,you’ll build an electronic library of training materials for those who may have missed a session. Large Groups Self Learner Learning Style More Instruction More Book/DVD Classroom Learner Small Groups Single Users Size Tutor/Book Hybrid Instructor Training Books/DVDs 16531c05.qxd 3/19/07 1:42 PM Page 76 77 ■ TRAINING METHODOLOGY Method 5: Learning by the school of hard knocks Unfortunately, this method is still the most prevalent in the CAD world. Typically, this type of training puts a user in a situation in which they don’t know what they’re doing—you turn them loose to figure out what to do. Although users do learn in this scenario, it’s the least efficient training method because in order to learn, the user has to ask a co-worker or the CAD manager for help. This results in an interruption in productivity for both people. Doesn’t it make sense to train people by showing them the right way to do things rather than turning them loose and hoping they’ll figure it out? I mention this method because it’s so prevalent, yet few people stop to think about the wasted productivity it causes. No matter how many users you have, and no matter what their learning styles are, the school of hard knocks is the least effective way to teach anybody anything. Sorting Out the Methods If you put all these methods together, you’ll see a mixed palette of ways that you can deal with user training. I encourage you to think about your user base from a stand- point of how many users you have, how they seem to learn best, and how self-directed they are. Having put in some thought, you can draw conclusions about the best method- ologies. Here are a few brief examples so you can get a feel for what I mean: Many users who aren’t self learners If you have a relatively high number of users who seem to need classroom instruction to understand what’s being taught, you should use the traditional classroom methodology. Doing so allows you to lead users through an aggressive training program on a fixed timeline, thus forcing users who don’t self-learn to absorb the material presented. Smaller groups of those who self learn fairly well If you have smaller groups of users who learn a bit more on their own but still need interaction and a classic training envi- ronment, consider leading your own shorter-format courses. I’ve found lunch-and-learn style training programs to be effective in these environments because you have an instructor-led training method presented in short segments. Highly motivated self learners or small offices If you have users who are self-directed, or if you have a small staff and therefore can’t realize the economies of training many users at once, look at more computer-based training or one-on-one tutelage. Now that you have some guidelines for what methods work in what environ- ments, I encourage you to map out the best training methods for your users, decide who will present the training (you or a professional trainer), and get a preliminary training schedule in place. Taking these steps will help optimize the training process, deliver training to your users in the manner best for them, and minimize the time demands on you. 16531c05.qxd 3/19/07 1:42 PM Page 77 [...]... fall into one of the following categories: The “You can’t tell me anything” user These operators won’t follow standards practices or procedures They’re typically motivated by the concept that they have a better way to do it or that they can’t be bothered with the standards or procedures you’re requesting them to work with The most effective way to deal with these users is to align them with a power... The “You’re not my boss” user The third category of renegade user is someone who won’t do things the CAD manager tells them to, but will do something if another boss tells them to In this case, the coping strategy that works is to realize what the problem is and not fight it If this renegade user won’t follow your instructions or listen to other power users, then it’s time to admit it and get the management. .. leverage yourself These attributes and characteristics of power users give you, the CAD manager, an opportunity to do your job more effectively Consider the following possible uses of power user talent: Pick their brains If power users study independently and figure out new technology on their own, ask them how they do it Ask them what resources they use Ask them what sort of information they recommend... know that the topics you’re training other users on have been battle-tested and proven by the power users you’ve recruited to help you perform the training Let them teach others If power users are always out in front of the learning curve finding neat creative resources on the Internet or in CAD publications, ask them if they would consider running some training or orientation classes for other users... with the task list? Were objects drawn to scale and to dimensions? Was the plotting output correct? Assign an accuracy score based on how many parts of the task the user completed correctly For AutoCAD, use Undo In AutoCAD environments, you can go backward through the drawing process using the Undo function to see how the candidate created the drawing It’s amazing what you can learn about an AutoCAD... fall into the next category The “I don’t want to; I don’t have to” user These obstinate users won’t follow instructions no matter what The only effective way to deal with them is to make management, the power users around you, and other users aware of the users’ stubbornness and then use positive peer pressure to make these users conform When users refuse to follow standards and procedures, they create... take advantage of in the training and management arenas: Power users learn a lot on their own They’re driven by competency and the ability to be productive, so they become independent quickly and serve as a model to other users Power users diagnose problems They don’t just point out problems; they find problems and figure out work-arounds and ways to make the CAD work flow smoother throughout your... way to go By showing the user the exact sequence of steps in the exact CAD software they’ll be using, they’ll see what they should be doing rather than interpreting those steps from a book Don’t own a projector? Buy one! Look at the money you’re saving your company on training classes—that alone should foot the bill Have your materials ready Don’t start training until you have the materials copied,... than any other I call that group your power users These are the people who are most likely to learn a new technology on their own and the most likely to study independently They achieve a high level of proficiency with your CAD tools with almost no action on your part Why should we talk about how to make use of these power users when it comes to training and managing other users? Because they have... go back and read the chapter from the beginning The techniques I present here are for handling those who haven’t responded to any of the other techniques I’ve discussed CHAPTER 5: TRAINING, HIRING, AND MANAGING USERS ■ 94 Figure 5.10 Renegade users are testing your authority and lowering productivity as they create nonstandard work outcomes When they’re allowed to deviate, your CAD- management plan falls . resolution and brightness is the only way to go. By showing the user the exact sequence of steps in the exact CAD software they’ll be using, they’ll see what they should be doing rather than interpreting. financial ,the CAD manager can focus on crafting optimal CAD standards instead of enforcement. Ask for help by making the following arguments to management: Users will listen to management Because the CAD. standards, teach the standards, and enforce the standards. All upper management has to do is throw their support behind the CAD manager—no extra work is imposed on upper management. It’s the cheapest