Any tips for understanding use cases and course content?
When I interact with Anaplan and groups of people in the real world I find it easy to take notes and understand what the users want to achieve. I ask broad questions and get a good grasp of the landscape they operate in, their preferences etc.
When following the course material I miss this interaction with people. The descriptions never give enough flavour and the way things are worded are often not the way I would note down the same information from the same conversation. There is no opportunity to talk around a topic or ask follow up questions to the person who's user story it is, which is the way I hone my understanding of the requirement.
I understand courses need to be generic and that everyone thinks differently about the world, however, I find because of these differences 50% of the time I spend on the Anaplan courses is trying to interpret the requirements rather than finding solutions to them or learning the platform.
Does anyone else find this difficult? What tips have you got for making things more intuitive?
Answers
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Completely agree. For people that have a lot of experience, the coursework can probably seem a little frustrating because you know the nuances of planning in the real world.
For me its a state of mind. The course is designed to teach you modeling skills not to teach you business, or planning for that matter. Once I started thinking to myself, "how can I use this modeling technique in the real world?" the course was much more enjoyable.
If you've gotten to Level 3, you will get to interact with "the business" a.k.a. @ChrisMullen - I think Academy did a great job trying to weave in what it's really like to interact with the business. And, surprisingly, just like you predicted, if you read through the other questions posed by the modelers you'll see that you're not alone in your sentiment. All the nuances of sales performance come out!
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Thanks, Jared,
If I didn't make it clear I do understand that courses are courses and think that Anaplan do a great job of leading people through the learning journey.
Interested in how others approach the scenario's and translate the requirements.
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Hi Tim,
Yes I totally struggle with that as well! It takes me much longer to understand what the course is asking me to do than to actually do it.
What I've tried to do to make this process faster is to sort of ignore the "story telling" and focus on the key words (like mention of relevant dimensions), to see that thing as a text version of a prototype instead of a business case.
Clearly it's not really a science haha but it's how I try to work with it.
Regards
Lis
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I agree - especially if you have finance/implementation knowledge already - a bit like trying to learn a new language, becuase you have conventions that you hold on to, but have to learn it in a conceptual, not necessarily applied way.
As others have said, I have to give Kudos to Anaplan - I use another EPM solution at work, and they charge for this level of self-teaching - ironically I will much better at Anaplan then the one I use - and Anaplan know that I will seek out Anaplan roles, as employers will me if I have that knowledge....good commerical model!3
