Like a damned moth to the flame...I'll defend JP's methodology since it's my own to defend. Astericks used in place of the stupid list formatting, just don't feel like fighting it.
* You can't teach all at once. As John said, it's a matter of keeping the ship moving while others are in training. And why train someone if they won't be using the software in an active manner for weeks or even months in some cases? It's a waste of time and money to train someone when the skills won't be applied soon and often enough to retain the knowledge. I liek the idea of scheduling training out for everyone, but amny firms simply don't want to commit to that sort of timeline. They require us to be flexible, so we are.
* There is enough information about there regarding civil 3d that even the most head-in-the-sand techs know something about it. Most of it's wrong. We advocate a small measured approach because it gives the best chance to prove the naysayers wrong, build up the templates, procedures, and workflows to show off a success for the company. Using this pilot team to iron out any kinks in the process for THAT FIRM make it much more likely to get a better adoption going forward and support from management. It's one thing to have one team struggle through the process, it's another to have fiv eor 50 do it. To address Sinc's comment, yes, groups move faster than lone wolves, but small groups move faster than large. Five to eight is sleek, 50 is a committee effort, and we know how those go.
* Training under someone else's data set is easy. It lets people focus on the tool instead of trying to design. It's building a birdhouse. I honestly don't know why you guys don't see the value in starting with something simple before you take on the larger tasks. Practicing on a relatively simple alignment and corridor instead of overwhelming people with a full round-about design is simply good teaching technique.
I absolutely agree that using client's data brings the point closer to home. In every case, our approach is to use the birdhouse for Essentials, and then train against the project that a team will be doing for their first project. JP's pilot team trained using the Apartment plan, aerial data, and highway information that was part of their pilot job. But this was after they knew was a corridor was, what a surface was about, etc.
And I have to agree with you on one point that I wasn't clear on long ago. We ahve adopted to using JP's pilot job as the basis for much of the training we've done with the rest of his teams. Combining this with the GBA template so that many of the objects LOOK like GBA work does go a long way in changing attitude. People see something that looks like they would produce, and they are impressed by speed, simplicity of creation, etc. You don't use their template, and all they see is, "Wow, how long will it take me to make that look good?" I'm with you on this one Mr. Farrel.
* Transitions happen very fast in small firms. John Mayo has made the jump pretty fast, there's only five people there. Sinc, your office isn't very large either. Again, the ship analogy works here, large ships take longer to turn. Simple fact of life. JP @ GBA will be done long before our friends at Carter & Burgess are. Engineering firms are all over the place with their willingness to change; some owners bought GPS equipment the day it was out there, some still use HPs for data collectors. To claim that the number of firms represented here in the swamp is a sampling is a fair stretch, IMO. Transitions can be all over the place. Most firms that go to the expense of hiring a consultant have enough complications that they don't want to have some <know it all> walk in and rip out everything overnight. They want a methodical, measured approach with metrics and milestones. It's part of the engineering mindset, and has served them well for years. Hell, accounting changes take a long time, why would changing the major engine of your business be something you do on the fly?
* Autodesk doesn't make money on training. They sell AOTC, but that's about it. The reseller community and consultants make money on training, so yell at us if you like, but any conspiracy theory about product being crap to sell training just borders on delusional. I like ya sinc, but give me a break. The reason the product doesn't always make sense, the reason it's so convoluted, is that it's a global product, and has to be flexible beyond measure.
I don't think you guys fully appreciate what that means. C3D goes out the door in 13 languages. That means that every change to a dialog to make something simpler is 13 times the work. It means that problems that occur can't be solved, "right now," because there is a policy in place that NO changes to dialogs are allowed between versions, and that no Service Pack fix can be applied that is not applied to all languages. For example, this is why Rob Todd's Survey Extension has never been incorporated into the core product. It makes sense here, but not in many of the international markets.
I think I hit many of the things that raised my eyebrows. I think it's a decent debate though, so let's keep playing. I'll leave myself logged in for a while so Dino can track me and be amused, and so I can reply.
edit - just some minor janitorial work
