Get a realistic perspective

While Expertus participated in the CLO Symposium, we had discussions with 23 senior learning executives about a variety of training-related topics. Again and again, executives expressed a high level of frustration with learning management systems (LMSs).

Our recent survey on LMSs also showed significant challenges. More than half of the survey respondents (About 55%) expressed that LMS customization was their top LMS challenge. Integration was next highest. Almost 40% of respondents said their companies did not use the latest versions of their installed LMS. Reasons for not upgrading included lack of budget (38%), impact on previous customization work (32%), uncertainty about version stability (32%), and lack of technical resources (25%).

Why the problems? Are they part of the package, so to speak?

Not necessarily so! But, avoiding major problems does require some upfront thought and a realistic perspective.

Work on LMSs whether an implementation, an upgrade, or a consolidation requires in-depth technical expertise with both the LMS application as well as a wide range of other applications, tools, and content. Even if your LMS is a stand-alone application today, we can assure that you’ll want integration in the future.

We’ve found that most companies require LMS customization whether the LMS is hosted or installed behind a corporate firewall in order to achieve the promised benefits of the application. Most companies simply do not have the technical resources for such work despite what their IT teams may tell them. And LMS projects are too important for them to be viewed as training projects.

Anyone who touches your LMS application also should have what we call domain expertise, a thorough understanding of corporate learning and its best practices. For instance, if you implement an LMS based solely on your current needs, you’ll likely find yourself trapped and limited within the next year or so. Though there’s no need to over-engineer, it is highly essential to consider likely future needs and de facto standards for corporate training.

LMSs are highly sophisticated applications that offer great value if you handle them with care. If you’ve got questions about the direction you’re taking on an LMS-related project, contact us. We’d be happy to offer an objective and practical perspective.

Consolidate & Centralize Your Learning Technologies

When you consolidate and reduce the number of your company’s learning systems, a cumulative positive effect is spread across the entire training organization.

There will be fewer system support requirements, less maintenance, fewer patches, fewer resource requirements, fixes and upgrades. In addition, you’ll need fewer people with technology skill sets, which helps to reduce support costs. The bonus benefit is your reporting will become easier, which will lead to better learning measurements.

In our experience, there are two main challenges to the consolidation and centralization of learning technology:
1. Deciding what to do with legacy data
2. How to meet the functional requirements of varying business units

With regard to legacy data, there are several options. Assuming you have the ability to keep your legacy systems, you can migrate users to new systems and build data integration into your stable legacy systems. Users can still access the data, but you won’t have to go through a big data migration effort, which can be time consuming and expensive.

If you have to go through a data migration effort, which is usually accompanied by a significant amount of data clean up, it makes sense to conduct a data audit and do some systems analysis up front.

The second big challenge is how to meet the functional requirements of various groups across your organization. More and more training departments are leveraging newer technologies and approaches by building LMS functionality OUTSIDE of their LMS, in the form of portals and widgets. This approach allows you to customize to the needs of those diverse business units and significantly improve the user experience.
For more tips, check out our recent webinar recording or read our white paper, Eliminate Waste and Reap the Rewards: Nine Ways to Trim Operational Expenses to Fund Strategic Learning, both available at www.TrainingEfficiency.com.

If your organization is considering an LMS consolidation or if you’re interested in increasing the efficiency of your learning technology infrastructure, contact us.

For more information log on to www.expertus.com

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