by Bill Cushard (@BillCush)
Since we launched the enterprise software training maturity model, it has generated a lot of activity. Whether people learned about it from the webinar, ebook, or from this series of blog posts, customer success leaders now have a model for figuring out what stage their training business is in and for making decisions about what stage they want to reach. In this blog post, I discuss the fourth and final stage in the maturity model: Optimizing.
At the optimizing stage of the maturity model, training is seen as a strategic part of the company's growth strategy. Training is so integrated with the company's offerings that customers look to it as a core extension of the product. There is a high-level, experienced executive running the training function (director-level or above) and this person has a seat at the table on the leadership team and is accountable to a number.
What is that number? It depends.
If you sell training, and it is seen as a strategic revenue source, the training leader will be accountable for revenue and/or profitability targets. If training is offered as part of a customer subscription, the head of training is accountable at least for training satisfaction numbers. It might be interesting to hold this person accountable for product adoption at some level. After all, if training is designed to help customers adopt software, it makes sense to hold the training function accountable to increase and maintain adoption.
By holding the training leader accountable to a number, it provides focus on the most important thing valued about training. And when it comes to tracking and reporting that number, time should be spent optimizing systems to produce reports that stakeholders need. The learning management system should produce the sales, registrations, and attendance data needed to make decisions, and the training team should continuously look for ways to improve the overall training experience, from new course offerings to innovative training methods that leverage technology and improve hands-on experience with your product.
At the optimizing stage of the maturity model, you must:
- Be accountable to a number
- Optimize your pricing model
- Further connect training platform to company systems
- Continuously look for ways to improve the training experience
Optimizing your enterprise software training business is an on-going process of tweaking, measuring, learning, and tweaking again. The point is to continue to innovate and push what you are doing.
