Adoption Needs a Home: Using Planner + To Do to Support Training Rollouts

The training is over, the team is excited and brains are buzzing. Buzzing! Just THINK of all the possibilities!  

Your team walks away from that training with more confidence than they came in with. And, often, with more questions than they came in with. 

Think about it. The confidence you gain in learning a new tech tool is only followed (surpassed??) by more questions – the 'how', the 'why'. And my personal favorite, the 'what if??'. That's the gateway question to more learning and stickier adoption. 

But the reality is that post-training, we all have jobs to do. The ones, ironically, that we were just in the training to support. Crazy, right?  

And a mistake that is often made in that post-training let's get back to the job at hand mode is that the organization assumes that we'll all remember what we've learned. 

Well, that would be great. But actually? 

We won't. 

Not because we don't care. Because we're busy with the job at hand and the projection of what is to be often gets set to the side. 

That's why successful adoption needs a home. 

A simple place where tasks, follow-ups, questions, and action items can live after training ends. 

What happens to our brains after training? 

One of the best things about training? It simply creates awareness. People leave training excited. 

They may have seen what's possible, and all the pathways in the brain start to light up with possibilities. They come up with ideas, sometimes really great ones! Things that they did not see coming.  

And, they are so ready to try something new. 

The best organizations encourage this. They have a brain-forward approach to training and learning, a let's-see-where-this-might-go approach. 

But as I mentioned above.... busy. Real work. The day to day creeps back in, crowding out the cool ideas and the fresh learning buzz. 

Without reinforcing the training, the good intentions, good ideas and good conversations fade away. 

Set your team up for success with a little bit of structure 

It's actually MUCH easier than you think. We aren't talking about complex change management here. That's a blog for another day. 

What I'm talking about here is simple. Simple systems. Using the tech you already have and are already familiar with.  

Check out how Planner and To Do can help out.   

You'll find a landing place here for tracking action items. We come away from training thinking about all the ways that we want to implement, and without documenting, these fall away. Track them here. 

Then, follow up. Who was responsible for the action items? Again, document the plans and the teams will hold themselves (and each other) accountable for the implementation. 

Now what to do with all those questions....????  

How about capturing them in a place where you can reference them, find the answers, share with the team, and host them for future onboarding? Since your current team went through the training, their questions will likely be asked by new hires, and capturing the fresh out of the oven questions will only serve to create smoother onboarding. 

One of my favorite ways that Planner and To Do can be of service here, though, is to create new habits. Your team can come away with a simple post-training method that keeps their team cohesive, engaged, curious, accountable, and continues the learning. Roll it all up into one! 

Use Technology to Reinforce Technology 

You already have Planner and To Do inside your tech stack. They live in Microsoft 365, and they are just waiting for MORE, well, more to do.  

Why not use them to support your next training initiative? They're simple, familiar, and effective. They won't overwhelm your team with yet another tool to learn or complicate the pathway by introducing a complex system.  

The goal of training, after all, is to begin to use the tech consistently. To create habits that last, and training that sticks.  

Employing Planner and To Do allow you to let them become powerful adoption tools, reinforcing what you already know you need.  

For training tips, ideas or even plans, reach out to us at support@excelandflourish.com. We've got plenty to share, and great ways that Planner and To Do can be part of your learning team.