Just Another Customer

Not really a full day’s work

Classes for professionals should assume students are motivated and want to maximize the return on their (time) investment.

Background: Yesterday, I wrapped up a two day Dreamweaver class at EEI Communications in Silver Spring Maryland. I consider myself a more advanced Dreamweaver user than the target audience for this class; however our organization uses an older version of the product (MX) and I was hoping that this class would help highlight the features of CS3 as we are upgrading in the near future. All in all, the class turned out to be about what I expected. I learned a few new tricks and got experience with the functionality available in CS3. The instructor left something to be desired though and a better effort on her part would have made a big difference.

What was done right: The class covered a good range of intermediate topics using hands-on exercises that allowed for a good pace. The facilities were decent and EEI provided snacks and coffee throughout the day.

What was done wrong: My principal complaint was that out of a scheduled 14 hours of class, we only received about 9 hours of instruction over the two days. There was an hour break for lunch, two fifteen minute breaks and the instructor ended formal instruction one hour early each day. In theory, the final hour was for students to play around with software or ask individual questions of the instructor. However, I honestly didn’t get the impression that the she was particularly interested in doing any more than the bare minimum to get through the class.

Other issues included:

• One of the my key interests in taking the class was to find out more about implementing server side includes (SSI). Unfortunately, the servers at the training facility were not set up for us to be able to test the pages we created using the SSIs.
• There were more than a few instances where the exercises did not go exactly to plan. Not a big deal as rarely does technology-based training go as smoothly as one would like. Less acceptable was the manner in which the instructor dealt with these issues. I can’t count how many times she stated that she wasn’t “fluent” in that particular aspect of what we working with.  It would have been unrealistic to expect the instructor to be an expert in everything; however I think that she could have done more to provide follow up with these questions - particularly given it was a two day course.

Suggestions to improve the customer experience:

• The management of EEI needs to make that sure that the instructors that they employ understand the needs and expectations of the their customers. Professionals taking time out of their busy schedule to take training want to get every possible benefit from the situation.