I agree with Fanatic Facilitator and Babzie. The user guide is a reference tool.
Like Babzie, for our instructor-led classes I create a facilitator guide and a training guide for the users attending the class. The training guides contain the step-by-step exercises and the facilitator guide is the same, but it has the additional notes/hints for the instructor. If someone were to try and use the training guide without attending the training class they wouldn't get much out of it. During the class and sometimes within the training guide itself (depending on the subject matter) I explain there is a user guide available where they can locate detailed explanations that are not covered during the class.

Good Luck.

When I taught technical courses, I built the user guide into my training. My facilitator guide contained descriptions of discussions, activities, exercises, and case study content. This included information on how features/procedures should be used.

I never included step by step instructions in the training materials - instead, I had my students refer directly to the user guide and follow the instructions there. There were two advantages to this approach...

1. I didn't have to worry about updating the steps in the training document when they changed - as long as the user guide was always kept updated wiht new releases, the students had the right info.

2. The students learned how to use their available resources during the training - that way they were always referring to the most current information, rather than an outdated student guide.

Amymurz - I like that approach as well.
But I think with most situations the audience you are working with is going to drive the materials produced. Our user manual is designed to be a reference guide that is produced to be more generic. Multiple business units use the same screens, but each unit has their own specific needs that have to be addressed in the training. That is why we customize our training materials to the audience using relevant business examples.