When you put together a live training, are you just throwing together a few slides, including a couple of screenshots, and hoping for the best?

If you are, you're not alone - that's exactly how I used to do it.

One of my shortcomings in previous training sessions was that I would try and teach everything I knew. I thought the purpose of training was to share information because information would change behavior - but I was wrong. If I had the framework on the infographic below, my training sessions would have been much more effective.

I've noticed that when I speak to Admin, trainers, and managers, there is a common perception that training and documentation are two separate things. Training is a time to pound concepts and workflows into users' heads, hoping that everybody will remember all of the PowerPoint slides and the onscreen demonstrations.

My first job out of college was in Pasadena California. Just outside of Pasadena, there is a large population of Korean immigrants, and as a community service, I volunteered to teach them English.

My first class was a lot of fun - I used Keynote, and included a lot of graphics bouncing around, English words appearing on screen, and a video of Jack Johnson playing the

One of the concerns I hear quite often about documentation is that people aren't reading it. This results in users continuing to ask managers and Admin the same questions, and doing processes incorrectly.

While you can do quite a bit to help users reference your documentation (here are a few ideas), making your documentation easier to consume will go a long way. So today, I'm going to share a tip that may help you in your quest for making documentation easier to understand - using a flowchart.

I really enjoy organized learning programs when they're done right. But when they're done wrong, it is a very frustrating experience. 

Here is the story of a training I attended that was a huge disappointment, and 3 lessons I learned so I never repeat it.

To have an effective training and teaching session, you only need two things:

1. Somebody who is sharing information
2. Somebody who is receiving the information

So why is training so ineffective? That seems like it's pretty basic!

Every organization should include live training (even if the training is virtual). Human interaction is important, especially for new-hires being onboarded or when a new feature/platform/workflow is being rolled out.

But what's the purpose of live Salesforce training? Why are you gathering together and spending precious hours of your day in a room together instead of at your desk working? 

One of the problems with blog articles is that they are one-offs. Going back to find an article that you really like isn't too difficult, but finding and sharing three or four that build on each other and teach multiple concepts is not easy.

So I decided to take last week off from blogging and instead put together a course for creating internal Salesforce documentation.

Reflect on live training events you attended in the past. How did they go? If you're like most, what you got out of the training depended on how you went into it.

If you knew nothing about the subject being discussed, and the training covered intricate details, it was like sitting in front of a fire hydrant. 

If you weren't interested in the subject, it was a huge waste of time. All of the answers being provided may have been great answers, but they weren't important to you.

But if you went in with questions, and those questions were answered, it was a great experience. 

When you put on your own training sessions, are your users drinking from a firehose? Wasting their time? Or is it a great experience for you and for them?

As Will Ferrell's famous SNL character, Harry Caray, would say, "It's a simple question" - why are you writing Salesforce documentation?

Are you doing it because you heard somebody at Dreamforce tell you to "document, document, document"? Are you doing it because... well... that's just what you do - it's part of the job description?

If those are your reasons for writing documentation, then you will never realize all of the benefits documentation can provide. You'll continue to write, and your end users will continue to ignore.