We offer 3 different strands of training, each designed for different levels of experience and seniority. We pair the right training with the right audience, meaning that your users are never overwhelmed and are spoken to in a language that they understand.
Our Professional Services team can create you a bespoke training package built up of a calendar of events that suit your project’s needs.
Whilst it is not possible to show you every training session possible, we’ve identified the three main strands and paired them with relevant examples that show you how we apply our concierge philosophy to our training and consultation output.
| Operational | Tactical | Strategic | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Example | “How to Log Bugs” | “How to Input Content into WordPress” | “How to configure a Taxonomy, Programmatically” |
| Format | Video call, Documentation | Video call, Pre-recorded Presentation, Written Documentation | Video call, In-person |
| Expected Session Length | 15-30 mins | 1-2 hours | Series of multiple 1-2 hour sessions. Series should last no longer than 10 hours. |
| Who? | Train the User (Up to 100 per session) | Train the Trainer (Up to 10) | Train the Specialist (1:1 Training) |
| Audience | Content Editors | Content Editors, In-house trainers, Marketing staff, Analysts | UX & Design Teams, Technical Teams |
| When? | Pre-launch | Pre-launch and Ongoing | Pre-launch and Ongoing |
Below, you’ll see some additional information on how we would expect to run some of the most popular sessions that other institutions use SMILE to deliver.
Example: Train-the-trainer Training
Whilst we are capable of delivering end-user training, we find that train-the-trainer training is more effective in the long run. We take into account the user experience of web editors, publishers and administrators extensively and aim to make any section explainable over a coffee break.
Therefore you can consider our train-the-trainer training a series of coffee break workshops where each and every caveat is explained in detail. At our training sessions we commit to explaining all aspects of maintenance and administration of WordPress core, our theme and any plugins used. Because the nature of our work is fundamentally bespoke, the training that we offer is never the same between customers. However, we do work from a basic framework that we have developed over the years. This framework helps us provide higher-quality support which is made possible because we use WordPress as the basis for the majority of our work.
We’ve found that training works best when split into tiers. For example, if possible, there would be a trainer for each permission level of the site so that training can be tailored to each role. Typically this means that we will deliver 5 sessions of training, which should help with scheduling training groups and class sizes later on. Where roles have fewer than 5 users, we would look to provide training as a group.
This approach should work for organisations looking to train up to 100 users. If your needs are greater, we would need to consult with you directly and devise a bespoke plan.
Example: Upskilling
We are an active part of WPcampus (an online community of over 500 represented institutions worldwide). Through this community, we can see a trend in the United States of America: self-sustainability for web properties. We have been refining our process over the last four years to include the same principles of knowledge sharing and continual learning that are proving very successful in the USA. Our process makes us competitive with our friends from across the pond and creates a point of differentiation from local competition.
Our client upskilling process comprises of:
- Shared Slack channels
- Introduction to Version Control (VCS) tools for design and code
- Introduction to Continuous Integration (CI) and Continuous Deployment (CD) along with the co-creation and handover of bespoke CI/CD scripts.
- Code Conventions and Coding Standards
- Creation of Wikis and Snippet libraries to document decisions and code examples.
- Creation of online style guides
- Creation of design component libraries