When deciding to introduce a new CAD package to your team, your biggest worry will be how quickly you can train them to become proficient with it. The largest contributor to doing this successfully is motivation.
A member of staff motivated to learn will do so in their own time; will lap up any formal training you lay on; and will learn on the job through exploration of help files, online forums etc. They might be up and running and productive within 3 months. On the other hand a de-motivated person may take years and never ever get to grips with it.
I was brought in once to train a draughtsman who just wasn’t getting up to speed with Autocad. I soon realised that he had never recovered from the shock of changing over from the drawing boards, even though that was a decade ago. His de-motivation had sprung directly from the way that was handled, and years later made him negative de-motivated in all aspects of his work. So the lesson I learned was that re-training in software has to be done with a great deal of tact and care. If you succeed in de-motivating your staff by introducing new software, you might have a problem on your hands not just confined to CAD productivity!
In general, for CAD staff to be motivated to learn new CAD software they need to know:
- The new software is standard outside the company. In other words, they can get another job using it with better pay!
- It provides a significant step up from what they are currently using e.g. up to 3d from 2d; parametric cad from plain 3d.
- The company / managers fully back the change. They need to see your (genuine) enthusiasm and unwavering belief.
- That there’s no middle ground compromise between the old and new systems, so they can’t revert to their old CAD when the going gets tough.
Actually, fear can often be the best motivator. Management stating “if we don’t switch to the new CAD software and have it fully integrated within 8 mths we’ll be left behind in the market place, leading to significant cut-backs“ for example!
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