RE: The Limits of Training

Subject: RE: The Limits of Training
From: "McLauchlan, Kevin" <Kevin -dot- McLauchlan -at- safenet-inc -dot- com>
To: "Todd Walton" <tdwalton -at- gmail -dot- com>, <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2009 09:52:08 -0500



Todd Walton stated:
>
> I work in the support center of a mid-sized corporation. We battle
> constantly with how to reduce call volume. Many of the calls we take
> are about password resets for Windows/the network. It has been
> decided that it's really not a training or documentation issue. We've
> told these people time and time again how to change their network
> (Windows) password and they still do it a different way. Training is
> apparently not the answer. There's no document that has convinced
> these people to change their password in the right way.
>
> We have decided that we must change the way passwords work. We've met
> a limit of technical documentation.

Possibly, but consider that you and your system users have run up
against the limits imposed by a badly designed network access control
system.

Nobody should deploy a system that allows users to perform a simple
action "a different way", when that different way is wrong.
You don't release an application whose user interface allows the user to
break the app.

If you do, then you fix it as soon as you discover the problem.

If you don't fix it, you face the situation that your gang is facing.

You must change the way that passwords work.

Documentation is not the fix for a badly designed
product/service/system.

Consider that your user population probably changes their password once
every three months or so, and probably after some form of automatic
nagging. Chances are, with employee populations being as mobile as they
are, that many of them came from better-designed or differently-working
systems, and have years of habit behind their actions. Your system
should either accommodate their habit, or else just refuse to comply and
force them to do what's necessary. It should (stitch) recover
gracefully from any inappropriate input.

- Kevin
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References:
The Limits of Training: From: Todd Walton

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