How to train an intern

[bangmaster]

My company has blessed me with a technical writing intern. Wondering how you would go about training the intern on Flare. Unfortunately, I don't have budget to have MadCap train him as I'm already going to MadWorld this year, but if anyone has trained an intern, I'd love to hear how you went about ensuring their success. Thanks.

[SteveS]

You could start with Madcaps tutorials...

[Nita Beck]

I haven’t trained an intern, but I have personally trained a couple of “production assistants” who are not technical writers, so I think they’re similar resources. My early expectations of them is that they can learn their way around a Flare project so they can make updates to existing topics. That’s it. I personally give them a tour of the projects they’ll be working in, explaining how they are put together, what the core files are (topics, snippets, TOCs) that I expect them to touch. Obviously, I have to teach them how to use the XML Editor, the internal text editor, the TOC editor, as well as show them where things are located in the Content Explorer and Project Organizer. Depending on the projects, I may need to show them how to apply conditions and to use variables. Gradually, over time, I build up their knowledge to the point where they can add snippets and topics on their own, as well as add their new topics to existing TOCs, or even invent a new TOC. Eventually, I train them how to prep legacy content (Word, FrameMaker) and then import it into Flare and clean it up post-import. I’ve got one assistant now who is so good, fast, and accurate that I can throw a legacy doc at him and say “Pull this content into the project” and he knows exactly what to do and does it with a high level of skill.

I never expect my production assistants to design CSS, page layouts, master pages, skins, or targets. That’s my work as the lead author, as the designer. A production assistant might suggest to me that we need a new variable or two, or even a new style or condition to accomplish something he or she sees in legacy content that we need to reproduce in Flare.

Sometimes, just having a production assistant give all the content a thorough proofreading is valuable.

If the projects are in source control (and suffice it to say, they all are in my shop), I train my assistant on how to get updates, commit (including writing good commit messages), push, pull, and so forth.

My parting thought is that having an assistant / intern really is a blessing! A menial task for you is still a valuable task that an intern can do. Harness the power of delegation!

I hope this gives you some ideas for how to break in your intern and have him or her do some useful work for you and your employer.

[SteveS]

My company has blessed me with a technical writing intern. Wondering how you would go about training the intern on Flare. Unfortunately, I don't have budget to have MadCap train him as I'm already going to MadWorld this year, but if anyone has trained an intern, I'd love to hear how you went about ensuring their success. Thanks.

How much do they already know, and what are they expected to know and be able to do?

As I said, the Flare tutorials are a good place to start. They can either tackle them alone, with you watching, or watch you going through the paces. Standard instruction for IT is to go through the task at full speed (so the learner can see the final result), then go through the steps so the learner can watch and listen, watch and do, or whatever learning technique suits them best, and then try the task themselves. One on one I'd suggest watching them going thorough the tutorial, discussing the application of what they are doing to their role.

What are their css/ html skills like? Will they need them? We all know from experience a knowledge of css and html helps when using Flare.

Are they transitioning to a permanent role in your organisation? If so, a bit of time with others, particularly those producing what you document, can be invaluable, both for knowledge and building relationships. If they can get to know the end users, that can help as well.

You are in a good position, you have the potential to shape the sort of worker someone will become. Treat them kindly and honestly and it'll come back in spades...

[smajors]

I'm sure there are several different ways you could go about this but I'll include a few ideas I've implemented in the past.

A checklist or list of items you should run through may be helpful. If they have had any experience with a content management system, I've found it's a quick transition to Flare and is quick to learn the basics. I might briefly mention more in-depth aspects of Flare like page layouts or setup type of items, but even as an experienced Flare user I don't go into those items daily or weekly, so I wouldn't spend too much time on areas that aren't used as often.

You could walk through creating a topic from scratch and the steps you would take and same for editing/updating an existing topic. I think hands-on learning works well, so if you could give the intern a short project to start with or one topic to work from scratch with after learning the basics, it would be a quick "test" to see how they do in Flare, and they will learn from questions they have along the way.

[Scotty]

The absolute key to getting going in Flare my experience:

- Show the building blocks that are topics.
- Show the usage/relationship/difference between TOCs, Targets, Skins, master pages and page layouts.

Have several versions of each available and let them play around with these four things, give them small tasks to complete and perhaps a small project that should take a few hours. Hammer these things home until they truly understand what's going on.

Move on to variables, styles usage, cross-references/links/bookmarks, images. If you use snippets, then throw that in too.

From there, they're good to go in my experience, and can pick up the other features and finer details with time.

I'm assuming here that they have some previous knowledge of technical writing basics and various related concepts. If not, that's a whole new area you should thread through the training.