For an example of specialised training, we can mention our recent development and delivery of an Outlook 2003 Workshop for a company that wanted their personnel to be trained quickly, and only in those elements of Outlook that were particular to their company's deployment.

We first created a classroom setup that reflected the real-life working environment, and then had the students go through some of their daily routines. We then invented various challenges, which the students learned to solve by using the extended functionality of Outlook 2003. As a result, the students became comfortable with the new features of the software, and were eager to begin using it in their normal working environment.

Over a period of one month, Quest trained several hundred people over several dozen sessions, in several dozen countries!  The end result?  The company achieved a highly leveraged deployment, defined by strong user acceptance and use, and relatively low total cost of implementation (especially with regard to helpdesk transition support!

A Custom Presentation

Quest trainers conducted a series of one-day seminars for a large telecommunications company in the Netherlands, which wanted to familiarise a large group of non-technical managers with the capabilities of Windows 2003 in a heterogeneous environment. These managers did not have a specific Microsoft background, but were somewhat familiar with UNIX and had experience with various enterprise software products like SAP and Oracle.

Quest set up the seminars in such a way so that the managers learned not only about the features of Active Directory, but also where various restrictions lay.  Through a combination of lectures, demonstrations, and hands-on exercises, attendees learned how to get the best out of AD for their particular working environment. 

Although only a short introduction, this background made these managers more confident and generally better equipped to discuss systems issues with AD technical stsaff.   In the long term, this will certainly have a positive effect on productivity, as well as reduce total cost of ownership and lead to better leveraging of the company's technology investment.