Many Pies

Many Pies

Thursday, November 22, 2007

Ding! Procedures need skills

I was just doing some training on a procedure that I've written.

One of the things I've struggled with is what level to write them at. Which do you say?
refresh the spreadsheet
or
right click and choose "refresh data"
or
push the right hand button on your mouse. A menu will pop up. Move the mouse down until the line "refresh data" is highlighted and then push the left hand button on your mouse
.

What I just realised in a flash of inspiration, was that things like right clicking and choosing an option, or refreshing spreadsheets are skills that apply to more than one procedure. You don't need to give instruction on the skills in the procedure, but it would be worthwhile (even though a lot of work) to list the skills required to do the procedure. Then when teaching someone how to follow the procedure, you don't really teach them the procedure, you make sure they have all the skills to do it, and leave them to get on with it. A well written procedure will not need teaching if someone has all the required skills.

This is probably all in the standard textbook on procedure writing, but I don't have such a book.

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