Reasons Τo Love Your LMS
The Learning Management System (LMS) is notorious for being hated by administrators, instructional designers, and end users. Some surveys report that 27% of users outright hate their LMS, and 61% of companies plan to replace their vendor in the next 18 months.
Why so much hate? Like any good relationship, it’s important to know what you’re looking for and to learn from your past experiences. LMS software is a very broad term that covers a wide and fast-growing category of options. Most systems today provide similar base functionality of delivering self-paced online training courses. But the options vary significantly based on target market (K-12, higher ed, corporate internal employees, corporate external customers and partners), supported integrations, and desired feature set. Selecting the right LMS for your needs is critical to long-term success.
We’ve found that the best matches come when the LMS is designed in a way that addresses your organization’s specific instructional design and business goals. In honor of Valentine’s Day, here are 4 reasons to love your next LMS.
- Remember that appearances matter.
The consumerization of enterprise software has raised the bar on what trainees and administrations expect from the LMS. Trainees should be able to easily navigate a professional, modern-looking user interface in order to let the learning materials speak for themselves. A friendly and easy-to-use LMS will help trainees enjoy the learning process and focus on understanding the content. - Be adaptable to changing times.
An LMS should be able to grow with your organization in terms of both instructional design and technology advances. Bite-sized content, blended learning, agile content development, mobile responsiveness, and video support are important new methodologies to consider to maximize training effectiveness. Although it can be challenging to evaluate long-term adaptability during the short period when selecting an LMS vendor, you can ask how the product roadmap is prioritized and how often new features are being released. - Provide open and transparent communication.
Lack of reporting is one of the main reasons why users hate their LMS. It is also one of the hardest to evaluate during a trial, since there isn’t sufficient data populated or standard business processes in place. To ensure open and transparent communication, make sure to evaluate the key business and learning reports you will use, and who needs access to the analytics. Ask your vendor to provide demos with live accounts and with your own content samples to verify the reporting that is available. - Integrate with the family.
Too many LMS systems are stand-alone sites with zero or manual data integrations with other business software. Organizations who love their LMS are able to seamlessly integrate the training process and data with their existing CRMs, financial systems, data warehouses and authentication credentials (Single Sign On). Remember that you are not just choosing an LMS, you are creating a holistic solution across multiple business processes in your organization.
Your LMS can be a wonderful solution that helps your trainees successfully develop new skills, is easy to administer, and integrates seamlessly with the rest of your organization. Of course, you will have a list of required features that need to be met. In addition to these features, remember the four points above during your selection process in order to love your next LMS.
