Lesson 9 of 10 · 9 min
Training teams and going live
Written by Melek Mehrez, founder of FreeMaint · Last reviewed October 11, 2026
Lesson objective
By the end of this lesson, you can plan role-based training, run a two- to four-week pilot on part of the site, and go live with a checklist and a named champion in every team.
Go-live is not the day the software is switched on. It is the day the old way stops: the whiteboard is wiped, the spreadsheet is archived, and every request and every job goes through the CMMS. Get there in steps, and the switch goes smoothly; rush it, and the old habits come back within a month.
This lesson covers the three steps that lead there: training each role on what it needs, a pilot on part of the site, and a go-live prepared with a checklist.
Train each role on what it needs
A single two-hour session for everyone mostly teaches each person what they will never use. Train by role instead, in short sessions, on the screens and the phone each role will actually use, with the site's own assets.
| Role | What to learn | Duration |
|---|---|---|
| Requester | Report a problem with a photo or a QR code, and follow the request | 15 minutes |
| Technician | Find assigned jobs; start, pause and complete them; record time, parts and cause; work offline | 1 to 2 hours, on the phone |
| Planner or supervisor | Review requests, create and assign work orders, follow preventive plans and the backlog | Half a day |
| Administrator | Users and roles, settings, imports, reports | Half a day, plus support from the project lead |
Train as close to go-live as possible, ideally in the week before people start using the system for real. Skills learned a month too early are forgotten by the time they are needed.
Run a pilot before switching everything
A pilot runs the CMMS for real on part of the site, for two to four weeks, while the rest keeps the old method. It reveals what no training session shows: the form field nobody understands, the phone that gets no signal in the cold room, the notification that arrives at 3 a.m.
- 1
Choose a contained scope
One line, one building or one team, with its requesters and technicians, and a field champion present every day.
- 2
Use the CMMS for everything on that scope
No parallel paper: if the old method keeps running alongside, people use the one they already know.
- 3
Meet briefly every week
Fifteen minutes with the pilot team: what got in the way, what was slow, what was missing. Fix the settings and the forms in between.
- 4
Decide based on exit criteria
Set exit criteria before the pilot starts, for example: requests, jobs and closures go through the CMMS without help, and the pilot team says it would not go back. Move on when they are met.
Go live with a checklist
Choose a calm period for the switch, not the week of an annual shutdown or a large order. Then check, in the week before:
- Every user has an account with the right role, and has logged in at least once.
- The app is installed on every technician's phone and works where the network is weak.
- Locations, assets, preventive plans, spare parts and open work orders are imported and checked.
- Requesters know how to report: QR codes are stuck on the machines.
- A champion is named in every team and shift, with time to help.
- The old tools have an end date: the whiteboard is wiped, the spreadsheet is archived read-only.
For the first two weeks, the project lead and the champions are visible on the floor. A question answered on the spot costs minutes; a question left unanswered sends people back to the old way.
Example
Go-live at the packaging plant
The plant trains requesters in 15-minute sessions at each shift change, and technicians in 90-minute sessions led by the field champions, on their own phones and their own machines. The pilot runs for three weeks on filling line 1.
The pilot confirms that offline use holds up in the parts of the line with no signal, and reveals one problem: the closure form asks for a field nobody understands, so the field is renamed. After three weeks, the line's technicians say they would not go back to the whiteboard.
The whole plant switches over on a Monday, in a quiet month. The whiteboard is wiped that morning and the preventive spreadsheet is archived read-only. For two weeks, a champion is on the floor at every shift.
Four common mistakes
- One generic training session for everyone, a month before go-live.
- No pilot, or a pilot that runs alongside the old method forever.
- Keeping the whiteboard “just in case” after go-live.
- Nobody on the floor to answer questions in the first weeks.
In FreeMaint
Included in Core (free)Inviting users and going mobile
In FreeMaint, you invite users by email from People, each with a role, and a whole list can be imported from a spreadsheet, including members without a login whom you only assign work to. The mobile app for iOS and Android is free on every plan; it keeps working offline, marks what was done offline “Pending sync” and sends it when the connection returns.
Read the documentationTemplate for this lesson
Training plan, pilot review and go-live checklist
Excel (.xlsx), blank, with progress formulas
Key takeaways
- Train each role on what it will use, as close to go-live as possible.
- Run a two- to four-week pilot on a contained scope, with no parallel paper.
- Go live with a checklist, and give the old tools an end date.
- Keep champions visible on the floor during the first weeks.
Exercise in FreeMaint
Do it in your own FreeMaint workspace, then check it here. Optional: the exercises of lessons 5, 7 and 8 add “with hands-on practice” to your certificate.
Invite a colleague
Invite at least one colleague to your workspace.
Bonus exercise: it does not count toward the mention on the certificate.
Check your understanding
A few quick questions. Nothing is recorded.