Do you ever hear your team tell you that “Tableau is rubbish” or “its not as easy as…[fill the blanks]”?
I know….you’re thinking, “WTF?”. How can that be? That beautiful shiny tool that the wonderful salesman told us would be the answer to all our problems? Not fit for purpose? Get out of here…
[Don’t worry, your organisation has NOT made a bad choice…..according to market research company Enlyft, Tableau is used by TWICE as many companies as the next largest vendors….for good reasons.]
Well. Don’t worry, you are not alone. We hear this quite often. What your team are really telling you is that…it’s new to them. And they haven’t yet figured why the pain of learning something new is going to be worth it for them.
Doing something in a different way takes a little time. The free e-learning based on Superstore data doesn’t quite cut the mustard when I’m interested in Wait times and Length of Stay, or Customer Retention Rate and Monthly Recurring Revenue growth.
And if it doesn’t come quickly enough….your team will revert to the old ways that they know (and maybe actually quite like).
It’s kind of like driving a car on the other side of the road for the first few times. It’s uncomfortable, perhaps scary and certainly frustrating. “I know how to drive already…so why does it feel so wrong??”
With practice, comes familiarity. And then you start to learn the other differences. Like the road signs and the different laws about giving way. And then you get to your holiday destination….and it’s all worth while.
BUT. In my experience, you have to build up the motivation to get over those hurdles first. Your team will not get enough motivation if they can’t see why they need to get through the pain and if they don’t get a helping hand to overcome some of the early obstacles that most people face.
Thats why the first module of our 9 step program Tableau Training on Tap goes through 5 steps to “Understand Tableau”:
- The art of the possible
- How to quickly get your data into Tableau
- How to create simple charts
- How simple formatting and encoding works
- How to build your first dashboard
And that is also why in our coaching sessions we gauge where people are and tailor the session to their own personal issues and how to do this with their own data, charts and dashboards.
People who are comfortable are not motivated to change and will find reasons not too. We find that people attending our coaching courses have very different starting points.
For the majority of your users it’s worth investing. To personalise the journey and not just apply the default training.
Through ongoing conversations, we look for the nuggets that allow them to identity their own personal “wow” factor that results in their leaders and managers saying things like:
“…they feel like they’ve been supported which brings a level of confidence. It’s just fitted with the way that they work and the way that they learn.” Ella, Head of Information.
“The team’s view of tableau has really been transformed, from seeing it as a flawed tool to a piece of software that can really enhance the reporting that they are doing.” Kevin, Head of Business Information.
And Will, one of our delegates, said at an early stage of the program “I am really confident now Tableau will become a tool now for my different projects”
And I recommend that you spend time to do the same. To motivate each individual in your team. To help them overcome their own personal barriers and get them excited. Once they do…..they’ll be driving on the other side of road by choice and leaving the old ways behind them in the rear view mirror.
And, of course, if you haven’t got the budget and the time to do it yourself….you know who to call…book a discovery call with me now to plan your roadmap.