Sofa Session: The Project Leader Onboarding course (PLO)

Olivier: 0:00

Welcome back to Planet Odoo. We are thrilled to introduce an exciting new series today, the Sofa sessions. You might already know this series of videos from our YouTube channel where our super host, Lucas Lanziotti, engages with the best of our Odoo profiles ranging from meeting office directors to shedding a light on unique internal projects. These episodes will be your touchpoint for fascinating conversations. So whether you're lounging on your couch, enjoying a walk or cruising in your car, join us in this podcast or on YouTube for this new sofa session.

Lucas: 0:31

Hello, I'm Lucas Lanziotti, a business partnership developer here at Odoo and In this series, I'll bring to you the people and the stories driving Odoo incredible growth. So grab a drink and tune in. To start 2023 on a very high note, we're going to talk about the project Leader onboarding, aka internally the PLO. This is the most in-demand service for partners right now, and it has helped more than 200 companies training their staff or getting from zero to hero in less than seven weeks. Now, I'm very happy to have the mastermind behind this initiative today with me. Hello, Antoine.

Antoine: 1:10

Hi, Lucas.

Lucas: 1:10

Cheers.

Antoine: 1:11

Cheers.

Lucas: 1:17

So.

Antoine: 1:17

Yes.

Lucas: 1:18

Let's start off by Who's Antoine? You've been around for quite some time, right?

Antoine: 1:23

A few years already? Yeah.

Lucas: 1:25

Can you tell me just a bit of what roles you covered? And what are you up to right now?

Antoine: 1:30

Okay. Mainly most of my time at Odoo, I've been a business analyst or functional whose goal is to recruit partners. And now I'm back as a consultant, but working specifically with partners and creating content for them, helping them on their projects. So together with a team, that's mainly our goal. So helping partners, generally speaking.

Lucas: 1:53

Generally. Yes. And also the project leader board is one of your child.

Antoine: 1:57

Yes, That's one of the things that we do in that team. We created that a few well, a few months ago going well, that's something that, as you said, is in high demand at the moment. So that's cool. Yeah.

Lucas: 2:09

So let's delve right into just to give the viewers a bit of context, the project get partners. So basically service integrators IT companies to train their staff and being able to deliver a service using Odoo's technology.

Antoine: 2:28

That's it. Yeah. So it's a seven weeks training. As you said, we prefer to give it to people that are new in their company that don't know Odoo yet because we restart from the beginning. So we have those seven weeks. It starts with something like we, we cover 90% of their workload with the videos, with sessions, with us, with exercises, use case that we give them. And then it decreases so that during the week three, week four, they can already start working or having an onboarding inside their company because there's always our onboarding, but they also need to learn about the company they work they work in or already take a few a few projects. Yes, that's the the idea.

Lucas: 3:04

And as the workload decreases, the complexity increases a little bit. So you get more.

Antoine: 3:07

Yeah, the, the beginning is quite, quite simple. And then the use cases become a bit more challenging. That is true.

Lucas: 3:13

I like what we what we put out is that Odoo has been working with the startup really good intentions, but sometimes missing a bit of the process or the structure. And I think that's where the necessity of a structured training for our own business analysts and project managers came from, right?

Antoine: 3:36

Yes.

Lucas: 3:37

Can you tell me a bit more like how was conceived and this transformation to an

Antoine: 3:44

Yeah, we are. Maybe Fabian doesn't like the idea of of being, you know, going Like you try to fix your bottlenecks before they arrive.

Lucas: 3:56

Yeah.

Antoine: 3:56

So we didn't have any. We it was a startup, the startup spirit, as you said. So we didn't have any process for onboarding. But at some point we were like, Okay, guys, we are recruiting a lot of consultants or even salespeople every year. We need to have something that is a bit a bit better structured. So we created something internally for our own consultants and salespeople, and then we said, okay, at some point they have the same base and then it diverges and they have different training sessions. And we said what we are doing internally for Odoo, shouldn't we also take what is good for the partner network and put it online and have the same kind of sessions that we have together with our consultants so that our network enjoys the same benefits for our cause that is very, very low. So that was the idea behind that.

Lucas: 4:41

Perfect. Basically, we have learned from our own mistakes.

Antoine: 4:45

Yes. That's always what we say. We did some mistakes and then we fixed it. And so if some other people can learn from it or not even have to learn from it, but already have the end result for us, that's great. Yes.

Lucas: 4:56

So basically everyone now joining our consultants team has to go through that.

Antoine: 5:01

Yes, it's not exactly the same because, of course, we have a few we have a bit Like we are not going to tell our partners how to on which project they need to timesheet, you know, that's something is really internal. So all those kind of things, we removed it from the training before we could have those sessions that we put in seven weeks, it could be even more. In fact, we could have 10 or 12 weeks. But at some point we need to stop. So we have extra content that people can follow after the seven weeks if they want. And anyway, maybe we are going to talk about that, but there is more to come.

Lucas: 5:34

Uh, no, that's that's fantastic. And as we said, it's a very high in demand service that it's been asking. So what is your general assessment from this first year that the service is out?

Antoine: 5:46

It's it's weird because I didn't expect this to be, uh, so, so much in demand But, uh, now I realize how much it was needed and it is special that we had to wait something like ten years before we created something that was just the base, like the onboarding for the partner network. We had a few trainings here and there. We do produce a lot of videos, uh, through the Odoo experience, or we have a few webinars, but it was not something that was really specific to the job of being an integrator. It was more like for end users or a bit of support things, but nothing that was really structured. And so that's what yeah...

Lucas: 6:22

I, I think we discussed this when, when we were, you know, talking about this And you said that there was something that was a kind of a training five, six years ago, but then resources were needed to shift, right?

Antoine: 6:38

It's always the same issue. And I think it's the same issue for our partners at the moment when it comes to training or onboarding of people. It's not that nobody wants to do it, but nobody has the time to. And so it was the same for us. When you have not enough people and you have projects or onboarding of your own guys, you say, but the onboarding of those guys that are going to do it practically by following you on project or something like this. So not really structured, but it works because you learn in the process. And I think it's the same for our partners. When I discuss with them, usually they say, okay, but the, the senior guys at the end of the year when they are, they have their appraisal, for example, it will be about their project, not about how many people they onboarded, because it's something that is really harder to to guess or to assess.

Lucas: 7:18

It's not as quantifiable as the revenue that it generates.

Antoine: 7:21

And some of them didn't even want to onboard the new guys in their companies. So that's where we come in and we we offer that kind of services.

Lucas: 7:30

Yeah, yeah. And it's going really well. I think from, from my point of view where I am basically in line, in touch directly when they are still not partners. I have seen a massive evolution, especially in the short term mid-term for the partners that actually undertake the training, right?

Antoine: 7:49

Yeah.

Lucas: 7:50

Uh. Let's maybe get into the nitty gritty because as I mentioned at the Can you tell me maybe just share with us what is a recipe for a good training for a good PLO?

Antoine: 8:06

I think the first thing that we need to have is that people should be quite If they have already something like one year of experience maybe that onboarding program is not that much for them because then they already know a few things that is inside. That would be the the first thing. We have groups of 5 to 6 people maximum. The idea is that as most of it is given online, even though we can maybe talk about that, we can we can do it here if necessary, or even, uh, at partner side. Um, we do it online and so it's really hard to keep people focused for something like 1.5 hours. The longest sessions are...

Lucas: 8:40

Per session.

Antoine: 8:41

Yeah, we have a few shorter ones, like 30 minutes, one hour, 1.5 hour. It really depends of of the content and also the motivation of people participating. We ask a lot of questions as on borders. So we want to trigger some interest and we want to see people thinking and correct them when they think wrong. Like give us a solution. We say we like the way you do it, but we would rather do it that way. Your solution is, let's say a bit here and we have a better one. And so we explain and we discuss. So it's really a lot about exchanging with the partners so that they know how to think around Odoo and that's where the value is. There is a bit of value inside having something of these structured videos guiding you through a process, but the real value to me is being helped by someone that knows the job already and that can tell you how you should do it better, even if you have a great idea at the beginning.

Lucas: 9:27

That is very interesting because I think if we can trim down what the objective leader onboarding is to basically kind of cut corners or better yet to avoid wasting time and energy into maybe finding that answer by yourself. So basically an IT company struggling, hitting their heads against the wall. So in this in this following so basically by us helping them finding the answers faster.

Antoine: 10:00

Yeah through a few use cases that is covered. It's working fine. And I said like five six people. If you have a bigger group, you will have a few lazy people, it's like a group thing, that will wait for the others to participate. So the the goal of the onboarding is also to say, okay, your turn, your turn. Like not that way, like pointing at people, but you try to have everyone participating, giving ideas and really trying to solve the cases that we propose.

Lucas: 10:25

Yeah, perfect. Yeah. Well, in a in a small group, that is feasible, right? That's why we kind of limit the number of people that can join.

Antoine: 10:33

Yes. That's, that's done on purpose. We had a few stories with two large groups as well. But as I said, it's really usually you see people share their camera and you see that they are not really that involved in the training session.

Lucas: 10:45

Scrolling Instagram on the bottom.

Antoine: 10:47

Here they are on their smartphone sometimes. So it's fun because you're like, okay, that's a bit, uh, it's not the point.

Lucas: 10:53

I think we are already on on the topic since there are a few bad cases, right? I wouldn't say bad, but what are the main takeaways of what not to do? So if you can.

Antoine: 11:09

Yeah, but of course you need to have people that are motivated to learn. That's the thing. Since I've been at Odoo, I've never I've, I've never been bored simply because you always have something to learn. And the program is evolving. What we do is evolving all the time and it's super challenging. So you need to have people that are hungry for learning. Yeah, so that would be the first thing. But usually I think that our partners already recruit that type of people. So usually that is already, uh, usually the type of profile that we, that we have. So people that want to learn and that are really interested, motivated, eager to participate. So that's about the profile of people. I said also the count, so not more than 5 or 6 so that it becomes, uh, otherwise, uh, not super, super manageable. Um, and for the rest, usually that is already a good first setup, not people that have, uh, too many years of experience on, on Odoo Of course, as I said, it's not really an onboarding. We have other services for that. Yeah, but then it's not the onboarding. Uh, as we were, we are talking about like, uh, that first, uh, seven weeks program. Yeah.

Lucas: 12:10

Since we are going in that direction and it's something that also kind of new. You said that the learning never ends and for the people who have a bit of knowledge and background on Odoo, we are developing other more advanced services like the smart classes.

Antoine: 12:28

Yes, the same idea behind. Well, it will be always the same. We have something that we have internally. We try to develop it for ourselves. And then comes the moment where we say, okay, how can we share that information? We have a bit that is available on odoo.com/documentation with lots of doc available and then we have a few extra session that we are creating at the moment. Some of them are already live at the moment. You can proceed on the on the tutorials part of odoo.com where you will see what we call the smart classes. So smart classes are designed to tackle one particular topic. We have one smart classes, one smart class about the inventory, manufacturing, accounting, being a good technician as a functional consultant so that you'll learn a few things. So those are the main ones that are in high demand as well. We have a few other extra on the POS, soon on the services or on HR. So we try to have that. So that's then it's for different kind of people. It's when you are not a seasoned consultant, but maybe one year of experience, you say, okay, I have a project that is starting in inventory. I don't feel super comfortable. How can I have a better knowledge?

Lucas: 13:31

Go to level up, go to the next level skill.

Antoine: 13:33

Yeah. And that's where we we come in and it's the same spirit as a PLO in the Something like half or two thirds of the time is spent on your side having a look at some videos, trying to solve use cases, uh, reading a bit of documentation and then meeting with the onboarders to see how you solved it and tell you why it's a good idea or not. Give you a few extra tips. Go really deep deeper in the in the information that that was already available in the documentation so that they feel ready for their next challenge on their project.

Lucas: 14:09

To to also align on the thought process behind like tackle problems, find

Antoine: 14:16

Yeah. On a practical...

Lucas: 14:17

On a practical way like how the system can can can can shape or can reflect to, Yeah. I think in a way we can say that the, the demand for the service means that something good is, is getting out of it.

Antoine: 14:36

Yeah. We can say that. You are in the sales world close to marketing and we always say a good, good product sells twice while good marketing sells only once. So I guess that if we have partners recurringly asking for that service, for me it's a good sign. I'm not saying that it's it means that it is perfect, but it means that we are on the right way, so we need to improve always the PLO. There will be a version two some this year or next year, we don't know. But we improve the content all the time and we are really eager to share with partners that that content when it is ready or to receive their feedback about the existing content. So that's, that's the idea behind. Yeah.

Lucas: 15:12

As we said at the beginning, this is, this is new. It's been a year and a half that we're doing.

Antoine: 15:16

It's still new.

Lucas: 15:17

Still new and the feedback is extremely important. You said not just happy faces and feedback when it's positive, but when there is bottlenecks in the in the delivery that I think just to to you mentioned that the the people taking the the PLO, so the actual staff, they're not the decision makers. They're usually being onboarded. So there is a feedback from them to their decision makers and from them to us. So there is the need to for the information to flow.

Antoine: 15:48

Yeah. We have two different kind of let's call it surveys that we send. We send one to the participants, tell them, okay, do you feel like you learned which sessions did you like, why? And giving a bit of feedback so that we can improve. And then there is another one that is given to the sponsor or decision maker at the company so that we ask them, okay, what do you think of those guys, the new employees that you have? What do you see from coming from them after the session? So for us that's also important because we don't judge the same criteria, but it's important for us to know that sponsors, they know that they can trust us and that they can participate to the evolution of the PLO as well. So that's that's very important to us. And it's always open. I mean, we send a survey at the end of a PLO session, but they can already anyway contact us. They contact the account manager and tell us what was good, what was bad. We have also a few feedbacks sometimes about about people. If they ask us who was participating really a lot or who was like really struggling with 1 or 2 aspects. So so that we if they want to know, we have that kind of knowledge. But yeah, we, we, we participate and we exchange a lot with, with the companies.

Lucas: 16:53

Yeah. There is a relationship built in, in the, in the process of delivering the I'm again very, very happy to have you here. Help me just sum up. So let's what are the most, what are the benefits that, what are the direct benefits that our partners are getting from the PLO? Let's let's, let's try to sum up in a few.

Antoine: 17:15

Okay. I'm going to to throw a few things, but I don't know. No specific order of importance. But..

Lucas: 17:20

No, just. To throw it out there.

Antoine: 17:21

It works because it's structured. It's well done. It's very practical. I think that's one of the key things. It's not like just you don't learn by watching videos. You see someone that is playing guitars, guitar. You will learn by having a look at some videos a bit, but then you need to practice. That's the idea behind as well. Seven weeks is not that long. It's organized so that it fits well with the real onboarding that you have of those people inside your company. The fact that we have experienced people teaching. I think it's not expensive. Like if you have that for five people for seven weeks, honestly, it's a really it's not bad. So those are the key elements. I would I would like to...

Lucas: 18:00

And if we look into the partner side, like I can see that again from my point of companies that are taking the PLO, they are reaching better like their target audience, for example, they want to get higher projects. So basically tackling from the beginning that that the market that they are kind of aiming for reducing churn, increasing customer satisfaction. This is kind of like the translation. I'm trying to think like what are we getting out of?

Antoine: 18:33

That's a bigger idea indeed. So we discussed a lot about the PLO, but maybe the more general idea is why do we even do that? We do it for helping the partners and having a good network that that works well, that is trained and that knows how to use Odoo. And so everything else participates in that spirit as well. I mean, we collaborate on clients, clients' projects. We, we kind of, in a way, share revenues when there's, when there's a project. So the goal is that we reduce the churn, as you said, have more projects on board, the users better do a better job in general. So our main mission here is to help them accomplish that. The PLO is the first step, but then you have all the other trainings in that spirit.

Lucas: 19:14

The learning never ends.

Antoine: 19:15

Yeah, exactly.

Lucas: 19:16

Thanks again for for being here. Insightful as always. Yeah. And we are going to be having a series of conversations. So if there's a topic or if you want to engage with us, feel free to drop a text here in the in YouTube or send us send me an lzi@odoo.com. Be happy to to engage. Thank you again for tuning in and see you on the next one.

Olivier: 19:42

Thank you for joining us for this first episode of the Sofa sessions on Planet Did you find it entertaining? Did it leave you craving for more? We'd love to know. Don't hesitate to share your thoughts and subscribe to the show. And hey, if you're in the mood for more visual content, head on over to our YouTube channel for the video version of this episode. Thank you for being a part of this amazing experience. Until next time, Cheers.