In the past few years, it has been relatively easy for our I.T.
department to migrate our servers and enterprise applications to Linux.
However, our attempt to migrate desktop users to Open Office (OO) in
Windows (not even Linux yet) failed miserably! The reason for that is
simple: training, supporting and managing the change to OO requires too
much manpower and resources. This is something we wouldn't do
internally, since our time would be better spent enhancing and
supporting our core systems and applications.
I see that the problem here is that the software development team is also doing technical support. This should be avoided specially in large organizations. You are using expensive resources to do training and technical support. Besides programmers do not necessarily have the skills for training and technical support. They might not have the interpersonal and communication skills required and it is not what they want to be doing.
Perhaps a good strategy would be the following:
1. Sell the idea of the migration to the organization
2. Formulate a commonly accepted migration and information systems policy
3. Hire an OO.org training team with good interpersonal skills
4. Identify and convince potential champions from different departments in the company and train them first
5. Use hands-on and authentic approach in teaching
7. Meet with the participants and discuss problems and solutions
8. Start with another batch and repeat the process incorporating things learned from previous sessions.
Holden
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