By signing in with LinkedIn, you're agreeing to create an account at elearningindustry.com and accept our terms of use and privacy policy.
Learn more about how we use LinkedIn.
We use LinkedIn to ensure that our users are real professionals who contribute and share reliable content.
When you sign in with LinkedIn, you are granting elearningindustry.com access to your LinkedIn account, which is used to authenticate you without you having to enter a different user name and password. We also use this access to retrieve the following information:
You can revoke this access at any time through your LinkedIn account.
Even after identifying the Learning Management System (LMS) that will make your eLearning dreams come true, it is totally natural to have some apprehension about the implementation. After all, LMS platforms are only as successful as the people planning for and implementing them. After seeing the good, the bad and the ugly with implementations, here are some tips we give our clients to help avoid common pitfalls.
With about 50 percent of organizations claiming dissatisfaction with their LMS, according to “The Race to Replace: Results From the 2012 LMS Trends Survey” from the Brandon Hall Group, we advise writing down a list of business requirements and asking vendors to confirm they can fulfill your business needs and meet your requested timeline. What this accomplishes is twofold: First, it gives you the peace of mind that you’ve, in fact, identified the right vendor. And secondly, it gives you leverage to get out of a contract if they don’t follow through with the promises made. Talk to your LMS vendor about the time and resources your business needs to commit to the project as well, so you can plan accordingly.
Almost all LMS vendors provide training to stakeholders who will be using the platform. However, to maximize these trainings, we see the most success when organizations take advantage of pre-training tutorials and “how-to videos”, so they can come prepared with questions relevant to how they’ll be using the system.
While it’s important to have defined goals and timeline expectations, it’s also important to gain a clear understanding of the Project Management methodology and tools your vendor has in place. Does your vendor have an agile process in place? Something our company has implemented is the use of a Project Management tool in order to streamline communications and allow for collaboration. This not only provides a level of transparency but also enables all stakeholders to be on the same page in terms of timelines and expectations.
Communication is key to any successful relationship, but it is especially important when it comes to implementing a new system. Although it’s necessary to involve all key stakeholders in trainings and allow them to provide input throughout the process, the best way to streamline communications during an implementation is to designate a primary point of contact to own the relationship with the vendor. This prevents duplication of efforts and the opportunity for miscommunications.
It is common for an organization to start exploring LMS solutions towards the tail end of their existing contract and want to go live with a new system as soon as possible. Your vendor should walk through a discovery exercise with you to gain a full understanding of your needs and expectations, and then recommend a timeline based on their experience with previous implementations projects they have completed similar in scope and size to yours.
Once you get over the fear of selecting and being trained on a new technology, the next hurdle will likely be around migration. Migration is about more than just content. It’s about user information and profiles, course data, transcript records and granting access to the programs your learners previously had access to. When selecting a new vendor, have the content and data migration conversation right up front, and ensure the vendor has established processes in place that make it as easy as possible for you and your team to migrate your system.
When everything is finally ready to go and you’re as antsy as ever to share it with the world, pause. While it might feel unnatural to wait any longer, it’s important to take those business processes and put them into practice. Have your team act as end users and walk through your new member experience from start to finish. Purchase and register for courses, watch them, submit credit, take a quiz, etc. Test every single component of the platform to ensure your members will have a smooth experience when they launch your new site.
After doing thorough testing, and working with your vendor to work out any kinks, you’re officially ready to launch. After months of hard work and collaboration, don’t miss the boat on celebrating as much as possible by educating your association staff on all of the new bells and whistles available to your members. Once you have educated them on the value this brings to your organization, take advantage of the resources you have in membership and marketing to roll out the new platform through an integrated marketing campaign that spreads the word.
