If Talk is Cheap, Why is Training So Expensive?

If Talk is Cheap, Why is Training So Expensive?

 Low Value Boot Camps

At this moment in time, SharePoint training typically takes the form of a 2 day off-site “boot camp” style cram session.  The effectiveness of these boot camps is disputed.  Recent surveys attempting to identify the root cause for SharePoint’s abysmal adoption rate (22%), often target poor training as being the main culprit.


I don’t know that you can really blame this method of training for poor adoption.  The reality is that this training is so expensive (averaging $700-$1400) that only a small percentage of employees actually receive it.  Typically these boot camps are only granted to 5-7% of an organization’s employees, and they are expected to train all of their peers (ouch!).

Don’t Train Trainers

Setting aside the fact that it’s almost impossible to learn SharePoint in two days, the real culprit here is the high cost of this training.  Even with a “cheap” 2 day boot camp, an organization would pay almost $350,000 to train just 500 people!  Clearly no organization is going to spend that kind of money – hence the evolution of the “train the trainer” strategy.

While in theory “train the trainer” sounds like a reasonable approach, the reality is that depending on “trickle-down training” can mean that nearly 90% of the employees are never trained at all.

Train Employees

The good news is that a new low-cost training model is emerging.  Since the advent of SharePoint 2010, the environment has supported media libraries and streaming video.  More and more organizations are now providing training to all employees, at their desks, via a curriculum of “bite-size videos”.  Not only is this new approach dramatically less expensive (it’s almost free in comparison), but it can serve double duty.  Because the videos are in the SharePoint environment and have attached metadata, they can be surfaced through search, allowing them to also act as a help desk. Not to mention, they are able to support multilingual environments.

If you find that SharePoint “talk” is too expensive for your organization, you might take a look at implementing online training. Not only can it solve your adoption problem, it just might take care of most of your SharePoint help desk tickets at the same time.