Microsoft SharePoint

Under pressure

/ Melanie Marttila / 9 Comments

Warning: This is a mega-post.

 

The content of this video really spoke to me and reminded me that I certainly could have it worse. First world problems and all that.

 

A few weeks ago, I reported that I’d been “called up” for another acting assignment as a consultant. I was a little wary when I first heard of the offer because it came not from the manager of the unit, but my then-current manager.

See, although I’d made the pool, the process of awarding indeterminate positions (something I’m not likely to get by virtue of my location and unwillingness to move) was ongoing and so I would be appointed as a result of an unadvertised process. It’s a fancy way of saying they couldn’t wait for the formal appointment process to get to the acting positions.

The last two times I was given an acting consultancy, I was acting in the role of training coordinator. It was not something I enjoyed. In fact, you could say that it drove me crazy.

This time, I would be committing to three specific projects:

  1. create an 18-month training plan for three business lines;
  2. help manage the overtime for the training team; and
  3. administrate a SharePoint tool created to capture and calibrate performance management ratings.

I would have no further involvement with the three training plans other than to create them. This was important to me because it was the maintenance of the plan that really got to me before (make the plan, change the plan three times before it’s even approved, then change it at least once a week thereafter, but keep all activities and escalating costs within the original budget request).

I was okay with that and decided to accept the four-months-less-a-day appointment. This will take me into the first week of May.

There was a tacit understanding that I could be appointed another acting consultancy from the pool through the formal process. We agreed to cross that bridge if it was erected.

So I started collecting information from business expertise and operational management on training needs for the proposed plan. Due to a restructuring of our internal college and learning networks, the planning process has been delayed pending the completion of a new tool (also a SharePoint site, incidentally) to help in the planning process.

I got a handle on the overtime process fairly quickly, organized the drive folders to reflect the (fairly simple) process, and track the overtime budget. This last is a bit of a sticking point. Almost a month into the fourth quarter I still don’t have a definitive number as to what our Q4 OT budget is . . .

I met with the then-administrator (going on parental leave as soon as his baby arrived, hence the urgency of my appointment) of the performance management SharePoint site and tool. I was given a brief tour and told that everything was set up and ready to go. All I had to do would be to watch the dear thing tick away.

Oh, yeah. And as a bonus fourth task, I was to write a nomination for the Service Excellence Awards.

My work of the first few days, aside from orientation, was to write up the nomination, due in a couple of days. Though stressful, my writing skills carried me through the nomination form and I met the deadline.

The OT process seemed to order itself fairly well.

After my initial consultation with the then-administrator of the performance management SharePoint site, he disappeared. The news came out a few days later that his wife had had her baby and he was officially on parental leave.

That was when issues started to emerge from the cracks like cockroaches in the dark.

I had already requested Designer Plus permission of the site (the highest a non-IT employee can receive) and for SharePoint Designer to be installed on my computer. The last time I had done any serious SharePoint admin, Desiger was off-limits. I didn’t know how to use the program and so turned to my friend Lynda.com to help me learn it.

I was asked to validate the management structure so that the appropriate accesses and permissions could be set up and set the deadline for noon on Thursday.

I became aware (belatedly) that a new set of custom list templates had to be imported into the site. This was not something I could do, and I have to put in a third service request to IT to have one of their specialists take care of that.

Once the templates were on the site, I created the new lists from them. Unfortunately I wasn’t advised that I could not change the names of the lists without breaking the cascading lookups and Kwiz forms customizations. Of course, when I tried out my newly created lists, they didn’t work.

Not having learned how to use either third party app (Cascading Lookup Plus or Kwiz), I was understandably at a loss as to how to proceed.

So I went ahead and amended the security list with the most recent changes to management structure.

On Friday of my second week in the acting consultancy, there was an information session by the creator of the tool, someone self-taught, like myself, but far more adept.

In that session, I learned about the naming issue, but when I’d created another new set of lists with proper names after the meeting, they still did not work. Before the day ended, I was finally informed that I would have SP Designer installed on my computer over the weekend.

On Monday of my third week, I confirmed the presence of Designer on my computer.

Then I received a call from one of the Directors indicating that the tool had to be ready to go for Wednesday. The creator of the tool was otherwise engaged for the day (two other business lines were setting up similar systems and his expertise was required).

Understandably, I panicked.

I thought my inability to get the lists to work properly meant that I had to get the templates reinstalled. I contacted the person who had imported them and asked for his help. I put in another service request to have the templates reinstalled ASAP. I got an emailed and cursory response to some of my questions from the tool’s creator, which didn’t help me much.

I initiated yet another service request for a custom permission level to be created for the site. This was another piece of the puzzle I was apparently missing. I was informed, however, that the properly named lists should work and that no reinstall was necessary. I called to cancel that service request, at least.

But the day ended without further action and the last word from my manager was to make it happen. I’d have to get the tool in functional shape by Wednesday at 9 am. I was authorized to work overtime, if necessary. How I was going to manage it, I didn’t have the first clue.

Needless to say, I hardly slept. The next day, I frightened everyone in my immediate area (sorry ladies) by having a full-blown freak out.

The creator of the tool was able to spend some time with me in the morning sorting things out. We fixed the three lists by deleting and recreating the cascading lookup columns in all of them.

I was shown how to import the three custom workflows using Designer. Running out of time, the creator fixed up two of the three and told me I’d be able to take care of the last one myself. Then, my sole support had to go help the other business lines. He said he’d try to get back to me later in the day.

So I fixed up the last of the workflows to the degree I could.

My manager called for an update and I was honest with her about the status of the project. We might be in trouble for the 9 am deadline.

Shortly after, the creator of the tool called back about ten minutes before he left for the day. He confirmed that I’d done a good job on the last of the workflows but said that we wouldn’t be able to go any further without the custom permission level (remember the second service request from Monday?) and two custom security groups for the lists themselves.

He said to add the security groups to my permission level request and try to get them all actioned right away. He committed to working with me first thing in the morning to finish off everything.

So I called IT and got them to change the service request and expedite its assignment. I informed them I’d be working late and so someone in BC might be able to help me out. It was all I could do.

I turned to fixing up the instructions and wording on the SharePoint site around the use of the tool.

About an hour into my overtime, one of the people from the other business lines, also tasked to have the tool up and functional for the following morning, called and asked me about the workflows.

I shared what I could with her and in return, she advised me who I could contact to have the permission level and security groups set up. Unfortunately, that person was in Quebec and had already left for the day.

I updated my manager at her home and, not being able to go further on my own, called Phil to pick me up.

My sleep was only marginally improved and the next day dawned a weary one.

My first order of business Wednesday morning was to get in touch with the IT person I was referred to the night before. He was very helpful and the work was completed quickly, but not in time for the 9 am deadline.

I called the creator of the tool and he finished two of the three workflows. Again, he had to leave to help others and said he’d call back as soon as he could.

I tried to follow his set up for the final workflow, but received an error when I tried to run it on the sample entry we’d made to test the tool.

The creator of the tool called back just before noon and fixed the last of the workflows. We ran it and everything was working. My relief was intense.

My manager called and I reported our belated success. We then turned our attention to the wording on the site and the three official communications pieces that should have been sent out at 9 am that morning.

I made notes for the rewording of the site, and then we worked together to revise the three email communications for our business line.

After two hours of work, my manager’s email crashed and she lost the drafts. There were tears.

We reconstructed the communications in record time (the second time around) and were able to send them for translation before I left work. My manager would not be at work Thursday or Friday, so I was the point person for approval of the communication content before they were sent on to the executive director for final approval and release.

Thursday presented its own challenges, but the communications were released just after noon. In the late afternoon, I started to receive requests for access to the tool.

Everyone should have had access.

Another panicked call to the tool’s creator and he helped me sort out part of the problem. The other was an issue that wasn’t related to anything I had done (or not done) on the site.

Friday morning saw the resolution of the access issues, and I was finally able to implement my manager’s suggested revisions for the site messaging from Wednesday afternoon.

Can we say WHEW?

This was, by far, the most stressful week I’ve experienced at work in the fourteen years I’ve worked for my employer.

Phil was incredibly supportive through the whole week. I’m so lucky to have such a great guy. I survived and am back to my usual, laid-back self, but this is not an experience I’m eager to repeat.

Lessons learned: I must get detailed documentation on any project I’m parachuted into the middle of in the future. This was a situation in which I literally didn’t know what I didn’t know (and what I needed to know to be able to do the job). Being deemed a SharePoint “expert” has its drawbacks.

And that is my tale of woe and triumph for the week.

Next weekend, I’m attending an event on Feb 1 (Imbolc for the paganish), and then, on Feb 3, I’m delivering my ‘how to get published’ workshop. It’s been moved from the afternoon to the evening and reduced to two hours, but it’s still going forward.

All is once again well in Mellie-ville.

How about you? Have you had (seemingly insurmountable) work challenges that you’ve been able to meet? Have you been able to surface from a sea of overwhelm and make your way to shore?

The Learning Mutt

A course in course design :)

/ Melanie Marttila

During my undergraduate years, I enrolled in a class that allowed me to teach the composition portion of the first year English survey course.  Periodic tutorials provided instruction in pedagogy and marking standardization session ensured that all of us in the program were marking essays neither too harshly, nor too kindly.  I also tutored in the writing centre and received attended an information session on the specific learning needs of native students.  I did this for two years.

When I started my graduate degree, I, like many grad students, taught the first year composition course.  Essentially, there was an orientation lecture, we were given our texts, and the rest of it was up to us. I used what I’d learned during my undergraduate degree, but really, I shot from the hip.

When I learned that an optional course called “The Theory of University Teaching” was offered, I signed up right away.  A lot of what I learned at that point was muddled with all the other courses I was enrolled in, the teaching, and my ongoing creative writing project.  I taught that course for two years as well.

Most of what I learned about course design from those days was focused on university teaching.  Most of what stuck with me was adult learning theory, creating syllabi, and the importance of learning outcomes.

While I’ve put together some creative writing workshops and helped a friend, who was a high school teacher, work on her redesign of her Writers’ Craft course, I didn’t start writing courses myself until last year.

I generally run on instinct.  I think about what I’d need to know if I was the learner, and go from there.  Systems training is easier.  There’s a logical progression to the course provided by the structure of the program: Basic navigation > menus > screens > fields > inputs.  It can be boring, but I do my best not to turn into a computer in the process.

My team receiving our awards 🙂

The SMART Board course for which I receved a Service Excellence award was essentially systems training, as were the SharePoint videos I produced.

I also helped to cobble together a course on elearning design, not having a clear idea of what I was doing.

The last course design project I worked on was not writing from scratch, but rewriting a course that was originally designed as a self-instructional module.  The new venue was in-class, using with participant centered methodologies.  It may seem like a step backward in a world where virtual training is king, but it was what our participants wanted.

The response to this course tweak has been positive, though further revision has been recommended.

My writerly goodness tends to emerge in the process of course writing.  I like metaphors; creating stories and frameworks for the training to play out within.  I like to play.  I try to be clever, but it was never one of my strengths.  In the end, I’ve learned by doing and will continue to do so.

And I’ve learned by learning.  Last fall, I attended two courses, the first on participant centered training (see last week’s post, linked below) and the second on participant centered course design.  The courses were only a month apart, and there was some concern that I wouldn’t have time to assimilate the knowledge from the first before being thrown into the second.  I found the opposite to be true: the second course reinforced the learning from the first and expanded it in new directions.

Some of the things I’ve learned:

  • Allow the participants to take control of their learning;
  • Include sample questions;
  • Always include the purpose of an exercise or activity;
  • Include proper learning points for a debrief;
  • Link! (current topic to last topic; current topic to next topic; learning to application on the job; to value added pieces, etc.)
  • Assess seven ways from Sunday 🙂 and
  • Provide lots of opportunities for skills transfer and application.

I’m still missing a few bits and pieces, but I’m sure they’ll all fall into place as time goes on.  I’m addicted to learning, you see.  I can’t stop.  I learn however I can, whenever I can: reading, Webinars, informal learning …

Most recently, my employer has made available a suite of elearning courses from a third party provider.  I have my licence until the end of the year and have already completed the Change Management and mapped out enough elearning to keep my busy if I ever have a moment to spare 🙂

As I develop my platform, slowly and steadily, more opportunities will reveal themselves.  I still have a number of in-class courses I’d like to take at work, and I’m just beginning to figure out what books I want to read on the subject.

It’s going to be a great adventure.

Any gems to share about your own adventures in course design?

Related articles

More adventures in SharePoint

/ Melanie Marttila

Last week, I took a bit of a departure from my learning journey to tell you the bitter and the sweet of a recent event in my day-job professional life.

Now we’ll get back to what was possibly the best year of my training life.

Even as I was finishing up with the elearning course, the drive was on to develop our department’s SharePoint site.  It grew from a single team site, to a site collection.  This was for our team.  A second site collection was created as a training centre for staff, and because of my tinkering, I became head designer.

So I had to set up both site collections, and develop a training product to introduce, or reintroduce my colleagues to SharePoint.  There was another survey involved as well, and many service requests to IT.  In my business, no one outside of IT can be a site owner.  The best we can do is designer.

So I spent the better part of a month, dividing my time between writing the participants’ guide and workbook, developing the scripts for the accompanying videos, and the PowerPoint slides on one hand, and developing the two site collections on the other.

I created custom lists, manipulated content types to insert templates into document library menus, put together a professional development site for my team where I promoted the learning blogs I followed, the Webinars I participated in, the books I read, and so forth.

It was about this time that I wrote my exam for the courseware writer position.

I spent two days recording and re-recording the videos.  They were still too long, but the deadline arrived, and I didn’t have the time to devote any more to the project.

In the wake of the training and the survey, several more amendments to the SharePoint site were suggested.  At the time, my colleague Laura was working on another project, putting together a Web page for our department on the company Intranet.  The Web page on our corporate site was to point to the staff training centre SharePoint site collection.  Unfortunately, there were few things we could legitimately control on the Web page, so the SharePoint sites were in jeopardy of languishing …

Until my manager decided that our SharePoint could be our de facto Intranet site.

Then began a new drive to totally redesign the training centre SharePoint.  Away went most of the Quick Launch links to the lists and libraries, away went the “out of the box” home page with its announcements and links, replaced by content editor Web parts.  I used my limited skills in image manipulation to create banners, and wiki libraries to provide a Web page-like interface for staff to access our training products and documentation.

At that time, I had three weeks to finish that bit of miracle before I had a couple of days leave, and then a week of training to attend out of town.  This was also when I submitted my application for the consultant position. If it doesn’t rain, it pours!

A marathon final day of tweaking brought that phase of the project to a close.

Were there more adventures in SharePoint yet to come? You bet 🙂  But not for a while.

This was one of the most demanding projects I’ve worked on, but I enjoyed it immensely.  I love being master of my own domain and that’s exactly what this was.

Have your interests fed into a project like this?  One that grew until you hardly thought you could complete it?  What happened?  Did you pull a rabbit out of your hat?  I bet you did!

Tell me about it … Seriously 🙂

 

Related articles

My first “real” working group

/ Melanie Marttila

It was an education, that’s for sure.

Ostensibly, I was brought in to advise the group regarding training and supports for a new unit that the working group was to establish.  They’d already been meeting for some time and I had a fair bit of catching up to do.  A further complication was that while there were several members of the group in my office, it was a virtual group.  We met by teleconference.

I got the notification while I was out of town, training.  At first, I thought it must have been a mistake, but I was soon set straight.

I’d never done anything of this nature before, and I was flattered that my manager and director had recommended me for the group, but I was completely out of my depth.

With the responsibility came the looming possibility of a needs analysis.  I didn’t think I knew how to do that.  I started searching the Intranet, found a few ideas, canvassed my colleagues, and got a few more.  Then I started Googling and that’s when things got really interesting.

Here are a few samples of the kinds of things I found:

Of all the resources I’d gathered, many were vague, some differing, and a few in outright opposition.  Most weren’t recent.

I even discussed the topic with my husband Phil, who was going through something similar at work.  What he recommended was a process analysis.  Essentially, the work to be done is broken down into its component steps, and then each step analyzed and potentially broken down further.  With a process analysis, task competencies could be easily identified, and from that, training specific to those competencies determined.  It could also be the basis for procedure and/or policy, or even a screening tool for candidates.  I liked the efficiency of the concept, and found it a reasonable proposal.

The unit had yet to be approved though, and so the people working in it couldn’t be officially identified, nor could the new unit or its potential requirements be discussed withanyone outside the working group.

How was I supposed to determine what training and supports might be necessary for a group of people who had yet to be named?  The process analysis still stood out for me as a solution.  The suggestion was not received with enthusiasm, however.

I had no experience.  I didn’t know how these things worked.  The project lead took my under her wing.  Another member of the group who’d had more experience in working groups than I, was also generous with her time and helped me to understand how things were supposed to go.

We were to cast our net wide, and think of all the possible courses that might be required by the unknown members of the proposed unit.  I researched, obtained estimates for training costs, and started to work on a self-study course for one of the applications that the staff would be using.  I also suggested a SharePoint site, which the group did set up and begin using.

Then we discovered that there was no budget, and most of my work had to be abandoned, the arragnements I’d tentatively made cancelled, and apologies and gratitude distributed tactfully.

About that time, things started getting hectic in my personal life.  My father “took a turn,” as they say, and passed away a week later.  After the family time I’d taken to stay with him during his illness, and my bereavement leave, I was approved for a number of additional weeks of annual and self-funded leave.

When I finally returned, the project and the nature of the unit had changed completely.  The necessary training was accomplished in my absence, my training course was not used, and the working group ceased to meet shortly thereafter.

It felt … anticlimactic.

It was an interesting experience and I certainly learned a lot (mostly about myself).

  • I will dive into a new project, even if I have no idea what it is about.
  • I’m a good researcher, so long as I have a defined goal.
  • I’m not confident in proposing my own ideas.
  • I will defer to the current authority.
  • I’ll adopt current procedures, even if I don’t see the value in them.
  • I’ll pursue my own goals and projects on the side (subversive me).
  • I’ll totally forgive myself when life happens.
  • I know my real priorities.

I still think the process analysis would have worked 🙂

Have you ever been thrown into the deep end?  Did you sink or swim?  Did something else happen?  I like to think I dog-paddled my way to the shallows where other priorities arose and by the time I was ready to dive back in, everyone else left the pool.  Special projects and working groups can be great learning experiences, but they can also be trials.

Adventures in SharePoint

/ Melanie Marttila

Last time on Breaking open the mind: Mellie got a SMART Board.  New tool, new game, and boy does the learning mutt like to play 🙂 (Fetch, girl, fetch!)

I’d just got started, or restarted with the SMART Board when my attention was drawn to Microsoft SharePoint.  I think I mentioned in other posts that I’m a little ADHD?  I’d just taken an introductory course in August 2010, and in December, I decided that I needed to refresh my memory, or lose all of that wonderful learning.

Microsoft SharePoint

Microsoft SharePoint (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The thought had been with me since September, when my acting manager arranged for the shell site on our employer’s server before leaving for another acting assignment.  Unfortunately, I was about to co-facilitate six sessions of systems training to staff across the province.  I wouldn’t have time to look at SharePoint, or the site again until after I’d wet my appetite for the learning with the SMART Board.

Come December though, I went to town.  I reviewed all the training material, and read the text that had been given to us with the course:  I played.

After populating the site with a few document libraries, a picture library, a wiki library, some announcements, a discussion group, setting up emails for lists, and playing with the content types to install templates into some of the libraries I created, I put together a wee utilization document and a survey to find out how my team might want to use SharePoint in their work.

Given the limitations placed on us (the best I could hope for was design privileges, and those would be curtailed by security and other concerns) I laid out what I thought were the options at the time.  They turned out to be dreams and hopes, but at least I got my fellow trainers thinking about SharePoint and the course that they’d taken.  It would be important in the coming year.

I got five responses, and then my team got its first permanent manager in more than two years and new priorities demanded my efforts.

Do you use SharePoint at your workplace?  For what purpose?  What do you think of it?  I’ll have more adventures in SharePoint coming and I’ll let you know then what I did with the tool next.

It wasn’t even my birthday

/ Melanie Marttila / 2 Comments

I started working in my current position in April of 2009.  For the most part, I was coaching new staff, post-training.  In June, I co-facilitated my first class, and I really enjoyed it.  My years as a poet, giving public readings, and my years teaching composition at university helped me immensely.

One thing I learned is that most trainers, like most writers, are quite shy.  We don’t like to be in the spotlight, but once there, something happens.  In my more poetic days, I thought of it as the goddess of poetry.  She inhabited me for a while and when I left the stage, she’d move on to the next wallflower.

Now I understand the phenomenon a little differently.  I let the passion for the subject I’m teaching take the reins.  When you love what you do, it isn’t hard to be dynamic, entertaining even.  I pour on the happy, sunshiny energy in public situations.

I got my first taste of Participant Centered Training in August, and then in December, became one of three trainers delivering systems training via NetMeeting to all of our staff in the province.  It was a grueling month of 3-hour session after 3-hour session, morning and afternoon, every day.  I’m surprised I didn’t get laryngitis.

Ultimately, that first year was just about getting acclimatized to the unit and my place in it.

In January and March of 2010, I co-facilitated a newly redesigned version of some of our operational training.  Of course, there was more coaching to do, a never-ending stream of it 🙂

Then, in May of 2010, I received a present: a SMART Board.  Our department received six of them; each delivered to a separate location.  To my knowledge, I was the only one to unpack the boxes, assemble the SMART Board, call IT to install the drivers and software, and give the dear thing a test run.

Basic functionality was all I had time to master, however, as other priorities emerged.  Involvement in a working group, the development of a brief introduction to the SMART Board for my colleagues, an in-person team meeting (I work on a virtual team), training in SharePoint, and preparation for and execution of three and a half months of intensive training kept me busy until the end of November.

When I finally had a little time, I returned to the SMART Board, registered the operating software, updated it, and learned a little bit about Notebook.  Then my hungry mind found something else to play with.

Have you received a work-related present, or a new toy that was a game-changer for you?  What was it?  How did it change your game?

 

Life before training

/ Melanie Marttila

I’m talking about my work life here, and before I became a trainer, I can honestly say that work was hell.

Before I go any further, I just want to establish one fact:  I disagree with the whole concept of work as something that we have to do to earn money, pay bills, and be a ‘productive member of society.’  I have no problem with work itself.  I garden; I help my spouse renovate the house; I’m writing a novel.  That’s all hard work and I don’t shy away from it.  I just don’t like the necessity of selling the better part of my life so I can live the rest of it the way I want.  It’s a devil’s bargain.

When I was young, it was retail, after school and on weekends.  In university, it was seasonal, contract jobs.  Now I can’t say that I hated all the jobs that I had.  I enjoyed working in the library, working as a student counsellor, helping students write resumes and find job placements, I enjoyed the pet stores I worked in, and the veterinary clinic.  Retail and food service, not so much.  Being a security guard was the worst, despite the canine companion.

I enjoyed some of the things I got to do, like designing Web pages (in the old type-it-out-in-Wordpad days) and desktop publishing.  I liked filming and editing horse shows.  I was good at teaching, but aside from the subject matter, I wouldn’t say I enjoyed the rest of it.

The problem was that until I started working for my current employer in 2001, all of my jobs were short-term, with no future.  I was always worried where my next pay cheque would come from.  Plans were out of the question.  I ended up on Employment Insurance. Twice.

So I got my first real job … in a call centre.  Six and a half years and varied, frantic applications for internal job postings later, I became an adjudicator.  While a vast improvement over my previous position, it was still a job, something I did to pay the bills.  A year and a half later, I was successful in another competition and obtained my current job.

I started off monitoring new trainees but soon had my first experience as a corporate trainer.  I liked it!  I immersed myself in my job and tried to do my very best.  Soon, I was rewarded with further opportunities for certification, new toys with which to deliver training (SMART Board) and the means of developing a collaborative work platform for my virtual team (SharePoint).

From there, I dove into the world of free Webinars on various aspects of learning, course design, and training delivery; I started writing courses, creating videos, and designing in SharePoint.  I became a social learner, a mutant learner, and, as I’ve dubbed myself, a learning mutt.  It was my day-job that brought me to the world of social media, platform-building, and this blog.

I’m now well on my way to becoming a certified trainer through my employer’s program, I’ve taken courses on curriculum design and project management.  I’m about to become one of a group of trainers who will be delivering a newly developed business writing course.

I’m having as much fun now as I did in university and everything that I’m learning feeds my creative soul.

I still don’t like working, but if I didn’t have to work, I might still choose to be a trainer and course designer.

Go figure …

Have you found, or lucked into, a job you like?  Are you still searching?  Share your journey!