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Sofico teaches at HOGENT during trajectory days
For the fourth year, several Sofico colleagues guest lectured a class at the HOGENT university of Applied Sciences and Arts. During this week, students...
Team in the Spotlight: Product Knowledge (PKL)
Each month we turn our sights on one of our in-house teams. We ask them to clarify their responsibilities and put them in a well-deserved spotlight. This edition: Product Knowledge and its team lead: Michaël Kuys.
Q1. What exactly does Product Knowledge do within Sofico?
“Our tasks can be summarized into the following three major blocks: training, documentation, and support. PKL oversees the design and/or development of (product) training programs, both internally (to improve the performance of Sofico as a whole) and externally (to improve our customers' product knowledge).”
“We oversee the production and quality of product collaterals such as: patch notes, manuals, training course materials, videos and instructables.”
“As for support, PKL gets informed and consulted about product-related training and documentation initiatives to centralize and inform all stakeholders. It also manages localization of product collaterals and provides guidelines for localizing content from the source (i.e., English version).”
“Among other tasks, we also develop and maintain a product certification process for partners, customers and employees and support, assist, and advise customers and partners in the setup of competence or excellence centers with a focus on product and industry business knowledge.”
A short video intro on the Sofico Organization Model
Knowledge sharing works best from person to person!
Q2. Among other things?
“Ha-ha. Yes. A full description of tasks can be found on our internal wiki, Confluence. PKL strives to become the number-one strategic partner for employees, customers and partners regarding product knowledge-building and sharing. If you need us, we're also happy to talk to you through Teams or in the office.”
Knowledge sharing works best from person to person!
Q3. Which colleagues are involved in PKL?
“Gert Van Eester, Jasper van Honk, Michaël Kuys, Sophie Vervelghe, Tim De Clercq and Wenceslas Audenaert are part of the team.
Jasper and Sophie are mainly working on product documentation for the end-user (customers). Wence and Tim are our trainers, both for customers and internal training for new colleagues. Gert will soon join their team.”
Q4. A team with a mission?
“Working as a unified team, we contribute to the growth and profitability of Sofico by providing stakeholders with the tools and training necessary for job excellence and career advancement. We aim to facilitate (product-related) training, learning, and development by offering employee coaching, internal and external training programs, e-learning modules, and online product documentation.
The staffing is very stable, but as Sofico continues to grow. Currently, we are looking for a Technical Writer and a Software Trainer.
Q5. So, what is the difference with Learning?
“Learning is (amongst others) responsible for training that is separate from Miles (our product). Together with HR, they focus more on soft skills, on-demand training, organizational training, and sessions around the PDP (personal development plan) for example. Concisely, whereas PKL supports employees in product-related training and support, Learning does this for all other training and (personal) development-related topics.”
Q6. Is your team complete?
“Gosh. The staffing is very stable, but as Sofico continues to grow, so does the demand for training from customers and new colleagues. Currently, we are looking for a Technical Writer and a Software Trainer.”
We will roll out a network of local representation (regions, units, teams) for documentation and training and establish a uniform approach on a global level
Q7. What are the long-term goals of PKL? What are you working towards?
“One of our long-term plans entails the expansion of the range of services offered (i.e., the transition to something akin to a Sofico Academy), including business knowledge training, product release updates, customer-specific training, and customer-specific documentation.”
“As for our mid-term goals, we aim to improve the scalability of product knowledge sharing and training and encourage the continuous learning process by facilitating and setting up resources to absorb product release updates more easily.”
Q8. So, delocalized?
“In the near future, PKL will establish translation opportunities for product documentation and training materials and introduce training material alignment processes between Sofico offices.”
“To realize this, we will roll out a network of local representation (regions, units, teams) for documentation and training and establish a uniform approach on a global level and thereby substantially reducing overhead.”
Thanks, Michaël!
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