Latest Contributions by Suzanne-Boden

If you're attending this year's Esri User Conference, are you going to San Diego with a plan to collect specific technical information to support an upcoming ArcGIS project? Or do you have a flexible plan to discover what’s possible with the latest ArcGIS capabilities and take that information back to your colleagues?   Either way, to achieve real business impact, your organization needs sustained technology adoption.   As organizations deploy ArcGIS software and new geospatial capabilities to improve their operations, a common challenge that leaders face is preparing the impacted workforce to quickly adopt new technology-driven workflows. Low adoption means a longer timeline to achieve the intended business results—or worse, results may not materialize as intended.   When individuals have a high comfort level with established processes, embracing new workflows requires a willingness to change. For most humans, change is uncomfortable. Leaders who focus on supporting the workforce through a time of change will be rewarded with a smoother transition to new workflows, faster technology adoption, and a more confident workforce.   This year, a two-day preconference seminar is specially designed to support conference attendees who are modernizing GIS-supported workflows, planning a new ArcGIS deployment, or expanding ArcGIS access outside the current user base.   The  Preparing for Change workshop addresses practical steps organizations can take to, yes, prepare for change. Attendees will:  Document the strategic implications of ArcGIS adoption at all levels of the organization. Gain a comprehensive understanding of impacted stakeholders. Establish a support and sponsorship framework to ensure long-term successful adoption. Communicate effectively by understanding the organizational impacts of new technology from the perspective of executives, managers, and employees.   As a takeaway, attendees will get templates they can use to start actioning change-management efforts immediately after the conference. If your organization is planning a technology change that will significantly impact existing workflows, take the opportunity to learn how to prepare your people to quickly embrace change, adopt new workflows, and get meaningful results with the cool technology you will see in July. Where and When San Diego, California July 6-7, 2019 8:30 a.m.-5:00 p.m.   Who Should Attend? Preconference seminars have an additional fee and are open only to registered conference attendees.   Senior managers who want to increase the overall adoption rate of new geospatial capabilities GIS managers who want to plan a people-focused change management effort Influencers and change agents who are involved in ArcGIS projects and user adoption initiatives   View registration details. ... View more

In the annals of Esri history, “training” meant instructor-led training. (It took a few decades for e-Learning to become a thing.) Back in the day, an instructor-led class was a two-week affair taught only in physical classrooms with a projector, plastic sheets of slides, and something called a floppy disk. Those days are long gone, but one thing that hasn’t changed is our commitment to help individuals achieve their ArcGIS learning goals and help customer organizations achieve maximum value from their ArcGIS investment. Today’s instructor-led training is available online and in person. It’s an active learning experience that uses the latest classroom technology, and every course is designed and built to a set of specific and measurable learning objectives. Everyone’s time is valuable. We want attendees to leave class feeling they got their money’s worth and then some. We want to exceed expectations. Expectations, however, can be hard to predict. In order to exceed expectations, first we must set the proper expectations. Which brings us to our new tool. Our instructor-led class readiness tool, released today, is intended to better communicate the knowledge and skills that course designers assumed attendees would have when starting a class. The readiness tool provides a set of multiple choice questions that measure prerequisite knowledge and skills that were defined at the outset of a course development project.   Our intention with this tool is to help those who are looking for an instructor-led class determine whether a course is a good match for their existing skills. It’s also useful for those who are registered to attend and want to make sure they’re well prepared before class begins. The tool doesn’t just spit out a numeric score at the end—in fact, it doesn’t return a score at all. Results are qualitative. If the tool detects that skills may be weak in a specific area, a list of relevant e-Learning resources is provided.   From the tool results, you can add suggested resources directly to an Esri Academy learning plan.   You can add resources to an existing learning plan or create a personalized learning plan from scratch. There’s no requirement to use this tool or complete any recommended resources before attending class. We simply want to offer the opportunity for individuals to self-assess and use available resources to refresh their knowledge and skills if they so choose. Time spent in an instructor-led class should be engaging and insightful, and most importantly yield practical results—knowledge and skills that can be applied to get real work done, faster and with better results. Today, the readiness tool is available for a select group of instructor-led courses, including our popular ArcGIS Pro: Essential Workflows and ArcGIS Enterprise: Configuring a Base Deployment courses. We will add the tool to other courses over time. About the Tool What is it? Instructor-Led Class Readiness tool Who should use it? Anyone who is considering registering for an Esri instructor-led class or is already registered and planning to attend on a specific date. How do I access it? Click the tool link on the course description page. Simply sign in with your ArcGIS account to get started. Signing in allows us to store the results so that you can easily access the assessment and list of recommended resources (if there are any) at any time. Answer each question, then review the results. If resources are recommended, plan some time to review them before class starts. ... View more