An engineer who cannot find an engineering job takes a class nobody else can teach, throws away the textbooks and treats them as adults. By the end of term they run themselves. To Sir, With Love is a film about a school, and one of the best guides there is to training users and handing over a new system.
In To Sir, With Love, Sidney Poitier plays Mark Thackeray, an engineer who can't get an engineering job, so he takes a teaching post at a tough school in London's East End. His class has already seen off other teachers. They're loud, bored and sure that nothing in a classroom has anything to do with their lives.
By the end of the year they're running themselves. That's the journey every Business Central implementation has to take its users on, from "this has nothing to do with my job" to "we don't need the consultant any more". Here's how Thackeray did it.
Thackeray isn't the first person to stand in front of that class. They've had teachers before, and they've made it clear they don't expect this one to last either.
For your project: most businesses have been through a system change before, and not all of them went well. Users who survived the last implementation arrive sceptical, and they're entitled to be. Don't pretend the last one didn't happen. Acknowledge it, say what's different this time, and then prove it. (See change management.)
Thackeray's turning point is when he stops teaching from the books. He puts them in the bin and teaches the class what they'll actually need when they leave school: how to look after themselves, how to cook, how to talk to each other, how to get on in the world.
For your project: training from the manual is how users switch off. Nobody needs a tour of every menu. They need to do their own job in the new system: raise their orders, post their invoices, run their month-end. Train by role, on the real configuration with real data, using the tasks they'll do on Monday morning. Bin the generic slides.
Thackeray insists on mutual respect. He calls the students "Miss" and by their surnames, and expects the same courtesy back. He treats them as adults about to enter the world of work, and they start behaving like it.
For your project: users are experts in their own jobs, even if they're new to the system. Ask them how the work really happens, listen when they say a design won't work, and explain why things are changing rather than just announcing it. People who are treated as partners in the change behave like partners. People who are treated as a problem to manage become one.
Thackeray takes the class on a trip to a museum, out of the school and into the wider world, and it changes how they see what they're learning.
For your project: take your super users to see a business like yours that's already live on Business Central. Half a day watching someone else raise a purchase order and close a month does more for confidence than a week of demos. (See partner due diligence on site visits.)
Thackeray isn't a trained teacher. He's an engineer, and that's part of why it works: he knows the real world the class is heading into, not just the syllabus.
For your project: the best trainers aren't the ones who've read the manual. They're the people who've done the job: the super user who rehearsed with real data, the consultant who has closed a month-end in Business Central before. Let those who can do, teach. (See super users.)
By the end of the year, the class doesn't need managing. They organise the end-of-term dance themselves. They've grown up.
For your project: that's the real measure of a good implementation. Not that the system went live, but that the business can run it without the consultant: super users answering the routine questions, the finance team closing the month on their own, the warehouse fixing its own problems. Plan the handover from the start, and measure it. (See hypercare and tickets you don't need to log.)
At the end, the engineering job offer Thackeray wanted all along finally arrives. And when the next class walks in, he tears up the letter and stays.
For your project: the consultants who built your system should be there for the next intake too: the new starters next year, the release wave in April, the new company you acquire. Continuity after go-live is what keeps the knowledge in the building. (See continuity is king.)
Acknowledge the last system. Bin the generic training. Treat users as the experts they are. Show them what good looks like. Let people who've done it teach it. Hand over properly. And stay for the next class.
If your users need training that sticks, or a handover plan that actually ends in independence, book a 30-minute call.
