Alfred McAlpine Business Services
Committed to delivering consistently high levels of customer service and working towards its goal to become a UK top ten employer, Alfred McAlpine Business Services was keen to provide its employees with positive and committed support to ensure that customer service achieved consistently high levels.
The Project
As part of Alfred McAlpine Business Services ´ continual improvement in procedures, the need for a new business process management system was identified and Oracle eBusiness Financials and Projects was purchased in February 2006. By July 2006, system configuration was well under way, but with a Go-Live date of October 2006, Isobel Robertson, Alfred McAlpine Business Services Business Applications Training Manager, faced a significant challenge if process based training material development and delivery deadlines were to be met before Go-Live. Around 300 core personnel needed to be trained before the Go- Live date. With a training team of only three and staff spread around over 240 UK sites, Isobel quickly realised she had inadequate resource to deliver the development and training process required for this project.
The Solution
Having chosen Oracle to fulfil its IT solutions requirement, the next challenge was to secure an experienced partner who could project manage the design, development and delivery of training materials, as well as meet the timelines and budget. Following the selection process, Larmer Brown was retained. Larmer Brown identified UPK as the tool that would meet Alfred McAlpine Business Services ´ needs, with the added benefit of automatically producing blended learning and performance support materials. Isobel Robertson commented, “Larmer Brown were unperturbed by the challenging timeline, and had a firm belief and passion for the product.”
The Result
As the project developed through each phase, Larmer Brown was well equipped to guide Alfred McAlpine Business Services through the full capabilities of the UPK tool. In addition to the creation of role-based process driven training materials, Alfred McAlpine Business Services was able to utilise the User Acceptance Testing (UAT) Scripts as a way of verifying the training materials, overcoming the need for a separate Pilot Training Programme. The HR Director of Alfred McAlpine Business Services added, “As changes to business processes were identified, the team were able to record information in UPK, which automatically produced a revised set of Process, Testing, and Training documents.”
From the initial scoping of the project to the final handover, Larmer Brown worked continually with Isobel Robertson and her team, ensuring that they had the knowledge, skills and documentation to maintain and support the training content after the Larmer Brown team left site. The final Handover Report confirmed that Larmer Brown delivered both within the timescales and budget.
“I question whether we would have been able to bring anything as a deliverable to the project on time, had we not gone the route of partnership with Larmer Brown.”
Isobel Robertson, Business Applications Training Manager
