All of the material in Keep the Knowledge – Make a Record! is adaptable. We urge you to read it carefully before using it for training purposes. That way, you can identify where and how to tailor the material to suit your agency.

You may find you can use the slideshow, booklet, reference card and evaluation form as they are. The framework of presenter's notes for Keep the Knowledge is written in a broad and generic style. Your presentation will be more effective if you modify the notes to meet the specific needs and environment of your agency and your participants.

Good training courses take account of the purpose of the training. It may be:

• for induction
• refresher or reminder training, or
• to introduce new systems and new ways of doing things

You should modify the training to suit your purpose. You might need to include more or less information, vary the activities, or change the emphasis. 

Consider your audience. You may be speaking to:

• long-term employees of the public service
• contract staff with little experience of records management in the public service
• senior executive staff who have personal assistants to manage their records management
• staff in remote areas
• distributed country-wide business units
• staff who have few records management responsibilities

This above list of audience groups is unusually diverse however it illustrates the diversity of staff you might be dealing with. You may not be able to provide separate training sessions for each group. Nonetheless, you should be aware of them, acknowledge the range of responsibilities among participants, and try to find meaningful examples for all.

Consider adapting the training to emphasise aspects of records management that are not done well in your agency. It might be that staff are creating excellent records, but not storing them in the records management system. Or you may be aware that staff are not storing files with security classifications in the appropriate way.

Your knowledge of records management in your agency will help you decide which part of the training to emphasise. You might want to provide extra examples and activities, along with a clear explanation of the benefits of good records management.

If you are new to the agency, or unaware of any problem areas, a survey of records management prior to the training could be useful, and help you target those areas for the training session.

Whatever the depth of the training, be sure to tell staff where to go for further information and assistance. Do you have advice and contact pages on an intranet? A helpdesk phone number or email address? A reference card or poster that prominently displays this information in work areas may prove helpful. 

If you use real examples and real guidelines/procedures that are relevant to the participants, they will better understand the principles and practices you are promoting. Gathering lots of examples and varying them for each group is time-consuming. However, this is time well spent, since it makes the training more meaningful and more successful in terms of modifying records management behaviour.