The last few posts and videos in this series have introduced the importance of a community where your data culture can grow, and ways to help motivate members of the community, so your data culture can thrive.

But what about training? How do we give people the skills, knowledge, and guidance that they need before they are able do work with data and participate in the data culture you need them to help build?

Training is a key aspect of any successful data culture, but it isn’t always recognized as a priority. In fact the opposite is often true.

I’ve worked in tech long enough, and have spent enough of that time close to training to know that training budgets are often among the first things cut during an economic downturn. These short-term savings often produce long-term costs that could be avoided, and more mature organizations are beginning to realize this.

In my conversations with enterprise Power BI customers this year, I’ve noticed a trend emerging. When I ask how the COVID-19 pandemic is affecting how they work with data, I hear “we’re accelerating our efforts around self-service BI and building a data culture because we know this is now more important than ever” a lot more than I hear “we’re cutting back on training to save money.” There’s also a clear correlation between the maturity of the organizations I’m talking with and the response I get. Successful data cultures understand the value of training.

I’ll let the video speak for itself, but I do want to call out a few key points:

1. Training on tools is necessary, but it isn’t enough. Your users need to know how to use Power BI^[1], but they also need to know how to follow organizational processes and work with organizational data sources.
2. Training material should be located as close as possible to where learners are already working – the people who need it the most will not go out of their way to look for it or to change their daily habits.
3. There is a wealth of free Power BI training available from Microsoft (link | link | link) as well as a broad ecosystem of free and paid training from partners.

The most successful customers I work with use all of the resources that are available. Typically they will develop internal online training courses that include links to Microsoft-developed training material, Microsoft product documentation, and community-developed content, in a format and structure^[2] that they develop and maintain themselves, based on their understanding of the specific needs of their data culture.

Start as small as necessary, listen and grow, and iterate as necessary. There’s no time like the present.

^[1] Or whatever your self-service BI tool of choice may be – if you’re reading this blog, odds are it’s Power BI.

^[2] I’m tempted to use the term “curriculum” here, but this carries extra baggage that I don’t want to include. Your training solution can be simple or complex and still be successful – a lot of this will depend on your company culture, and the needs of the learners you’re targeting.