Menno Aartsen, a former technology executive, learned the importance of business context years ago when he trained an early generation of users on laptops at three divisions within Verizon. The IT training team made a point to emphasize how mobility could change users' work patterns -- a key point given that many rank-and-file employees at the time thought of laptops as simply desktop-replacement machines.

So rather than simply instructing users on how to use docking stations or what to do with USB memory devices, the training team demonstrated how the mobility afforded by the new laptops could help workers log on remotely at night to get ahead or catch up on paperwork during their commute, new practices at the time.

"Rather than just rolling out laptops to executives or important managers so they could carry around data, we looked at a broad spectrum of users and positioned mobility as a tool that could enable new kinds of work," Aartsen says. Almost at once, a vast majority of the newly empowered workforce was willing to stay connected on the weekends and during other off-hours, he recalls.

Mistake No. 5: You forgot to forge business partnerships.

Given that so much of what constitutes good training goes beyond the purview of IT, it's critical that the IT department reaches out. Human resource departments and dedicated in-house training groups like Unisys University are obvious candidates for partnerships that can help IT bring the requisite business context and formal learning methodologies to its curriculum.

Reaching into the user community is another good option. IT might do a phased rollout to "super users" first and leverage their feedback and expertise to tailor training for the remaining users. This super group is also the same community that tends to rely heavily on Web 2.0 technologies such as blogging and wikis, all of which can play an important role in technology training, experts say.

Whatever the system being rolled out, the message for IT is clear: It's not just users who have a lot to learn about technology -- you've got some work to do to make training a core IT discipline.