There are several components of an LMS implementation process that have to work together in harmony to ensure your LMS doesn’t just make it online, but more importantly, is adopted by your users. As someone who has been involved in countless LMS implementations, I would say there isn’t one golden rule to follow for success, but rather four, what I like to call, “silver suggestions” that can help increase the chances of a successful LMS Implementation.
1. Ask For Help
When it comes to implementation, it is best to look at an LMS as 1/3 learning, 1/3 management, and 1/3 system. Thinking along these lines, you will want to appoint someone who can control each of these units, and report back to the main Project Manager for the implementation. By creating these three groups, you ensure every key stakeholder of the project is represented and that their unique requirements of the LMS can be met. In addition, it gives you an expert in the field you may be lacking. In practice, this person would be a content delivery expert (both WBT and ILT), a business unit manager (sales, operations, etc.) and an IT professional.
2. Create A Venn Diagram
It is important when transitioning to a new LMS to understand the differences between the new and old systems. Even if you don’t have an existing LMS to replace, chances are you have some type of record management process (Google Docs, SharePoint, etc.). This is crucial to a successful implementation because it helps identifying where new decisions and processes have to be defined. For example, if you have to manually add users to your existing LMS, but your new LMS will connect to your HRIS, you need to decide how much information to bring over to the LMS, and you also need to review the HRIS data to ensure it is accurate. If these differences aren’t located immediately, it could delay the implementation of the LMS, or more importantly, degrade the experience of your users. Again, a successful implementation isn’t just measured on whether or not the system made it online, but whether or not people used it.
3. Make Data Everyone’s Problem
To successful migrate data from your existing LMS, or raw data from sheets, you need to involve your IT team, someone from your existing LMS provider, and someone from your new LMS provider. Countless times, I have had organizations come to me with an expertly defined data policy for determining what data to migrate, what fields need to be changed in the migration process, and how to securely upload the data into the new LMS. But, they did take into account what data can be exported by their current LMS. It’s best to get everyone on a call to know exactly what is possible or not possible and then create a strategy for moving forward.
4. Don’t Sacrifice Learner Engagement
Throughout your implementation, many sacrifices will be made that you weren’t planning on making ahead of time. No amount of preparation will stop this from happening, so you better just accept it. When it comes to making sacrifices though, NEVER sacrifice the learner’s experience. The learners are the most important stakeholders; they will define success for your LMS, and they simply won’t waste their time using applications which aren’t user-friendly. For this reason, it is equally important you demo those features which are learner-facing before you make your final purchase decision.
This certainly isn’t a comprehensive list of everything you must do for a successful LMS implementation, but if you can do just 4 things right, I’d start with these.