I am in the beginning phases of developing a troubleshooting training program for a group of employees. These employees work in a "call center" environment and monitor processes at our production sites. They are notified when something is not operating correctly via an alarm system. These employees then determine if they can fix the issue remotely, or if they need to dispatch a production technician. We want to incorporate: root cause analysis, decision making, questioning (internal and of other people), etc. this program.

Any suggestions on books, existing materials, etc is greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

For starters, I would suggest that you identify both what information changes regularly and also what decisions need to be made consistently. Then design job aids around those areas--training people would be a waste of time on those issues.

Before I could make any suggestions about a training program, I guess I would need to know a couple of details:
1. How do you measure the performance of these employees in the call center?
2. What kind of performance gap currently exists in that performance?
3. Have you identified why that performance gap exists (assuming that there is such a gap)?
4. Is it the same employees consistently or does it vary? If it varies, what are the variables (time of day, nature of query, how busy the period is)?
5. Are there any exemplars or outstanding employees that seem to consistently outperform everyone else (or are demonstrably better in a few areas even if not overall)? I don't mean better skills or behavior but instead better results (ie: no instances where production technician was dispatched unnecesarily, majority of callers rate their problem as fixed).

First, if you don't have answers to all of those questions, the process of answering them will also identify many of the tools and competencies necessary for the work.

Second, I would argue that answers to those questions are necessary to decide what training makes sense vs. what training would be a waste.

Good luck!

Keep in mind to conduct your analysis on your call centre and organization within an overall context, namely the strategic business environment for now and in the future.
In short avoid rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
Also, how does stress play into the situation?

Nero