You have upgraded your software. What about upgrading your users too?

I have just finished teaching the SolidWorks Refresher course and I was so amazed with the reaction I got from my students, that I wanted to share it with you. They were ecstatic with the new stuff they learnt. You should have heard the exclamations:

Wow, if I would have known this last month, I would have shaved 3 days from my project.

This shortcut saves me 5 clicks.

I didn’t know that that is possible.

Most of them where either self taught or started using SolidWorks in 1997-2004. Some of them had more experience working with the software than I have. The drawback was that they were using SolidWorks 2010 the same way they learnt it back in 1997.

Looks like this problem is not localized only to our customers but it is widespread. Totally unrelated, I was doing research for our Guest Blog section and I found a series of articles that present this problem and its solution(s) better than I can. So until I can convince Jeff Sweeney to star as a guest blogger on Javelin Blog, let’s just go to his blog directly and read two amazing articles. This is an excerpt:

This is the time of year many companies upgrade their users to the new SolidWorks version. Sadly, for many, that is where the upgrade ends. If the users are not given an opportunity to learn how to use the new version, they will continue to use SolidWorks how they were originally taught. An upgrade requires two steps. You need to upgrade the machine and the users. If you only upgrade one of the two your return on investment is not as good as it could be. Few users learn the new performance enhancements on their own.

You can find these two posts from the 3D Vision Blog here:

The SolidWorks Upgrade Zone

and

Keeping up with the Joneses

If you need more information about how to start upgrading your users, please contact my colleague Christy Kendrick by email at christy.kendrick@javelin-tech.com or by phone at 1-877-219-6757 Ext. 234.