Well, we didn't win, but we are extremely proud to have been a finalist in the 2008 Institute of IT Training Awards. The Watsonia team were shortlisted in the 'External Training Project of the Year' category for an innovative Microsoft Office upgrade training project conducted for our client, the world renowned London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE).

The Institute of IT Training is the world's first professional body for IT training professionals and the leading authority in the UK and Europe on IT training and development. Its annual awards recognise outstanding examples of high standards, best practice, innovation and excellence within IT training.

The External Training Project of the Year award is presented to an IT training provider that has undertaken a major training project for a client that is innovative in concept and has produced demonstrable performance improvement.

Watsonia Publishing provided London School of Economics with its Microsoft Office courseware and its EngineRoom course customisation and production suite, as part of a Microsoft Office software migration and training programme carried out during 2007. The joint submission explained how LSE is using the courseware to deliver a broad portfolio of courses, tailored to the needs of staff and students alike.

"This has been an ambitious, challenging and very rewarding project to support almost 10,000 LSE staff and students through a major Microsoft Office software migration. This required careful planning and synchronisation between the various groups of users, the technical and IT training teams and ourselves as the external supplier," said David Kelly, Managing Director of Watsonia Publishing.

"LSE's IT training team had an extremely tight timeframe to be fully ready for the migration; this included the mapping and customising of nearly forty different Microsoft Office training courses, and the publication of challenge quizzes, practice exercises and other supporting resources from Watsonia on their intranet."

David Kelly points to the project as a model example in the IT training sector of how to get Microsoft Office upgrade projects right: "Together with the LSE IT Training team, we made sure that this ambitious project ran smoothly, receiving significant performance improvements and a very positive impact with the users. We are honoured and very proud to have been a finalist with LSE in this years awards.

You can listen to David Kelly's accompanying audio clip by clicking here or just click on the file attached to the end of this story.

The Institute of IT Training awards was held at the Dorchester Hotel, London on 7 February 2008.