Training Toolkit

Software skills evaluation form

Paul Baldwin, TechRepublic Tech Republic

Published: 10 Apr 2003 15:39 BST

Consultants who help clients deploy new software will often find themselves contracted to teach the clients' users how to work with the new applications. In many cases, users are already familiar with the software from previous employers.

But, as you well know, there are plenty of users who have little experience with desktop software. So before you begin your instruction, how can you tell who needs your attention the most?

To help you better assess the skills of a client's users, download our software skills evaluation form. This tool provides you with an easy way to determine whether your client's users need 45 minutes of training or four days of instruction.

Of course, you can use this form any way you like, but consider having your client distribute it to users before you come on-site. After you've seen the results, you can group your client's users by skill level, allowing you to customise your instruction.

The form asks users to rate their skill level with a variety of software, including Office, Windows, Photoshop, and Dreamweaver. There are also task-specific questions, such as "How do you set the margins on a document?" for Microsoft Word and "How do you create a public folder in Outlook and set permissions on it?" to gauge expertise in specific applications.

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