Learning management systems (LMS) are generally used in organizations to launch training content, track the progress of its users and report results. The exact definition of the "training content", "user tracking" and what reports should be included depend on the individual solutions a company chooses. As with all other software products, there are cheap and expensive LMS solutions - depending on a company needs.
In an interesting article, published on elearningindustry.com, Marc Niemen writes, "It is truly useful if it has the data in it you need, but many people are more attracted to the "bells and whistles" and extra features. In my experience, some 90% of the features are never used or not turned on, or organizations simply weren't aware of how to use them." Marc Niemen, is the President of the Australian Association of e-learning industry, has spent twenty years in the e-learning industry as a vendor of LMS, a content creator and user. He has been involved in implementing learning management systems in 150 organizations. In the article, he describes six typical challenges of LMS implementation in companies and advises how to handle them.
1. Do you know what you want?
Do not expect a single LMS to solve all your employee training problems. In most cases, a LMS is more useful to HR professionals to manage data and measure various indicators than to train employees. Before you implement a LMS, you must know the metrics you want to apply and be prepared to accept the results. If the first report shows you that only a third of your employees have been trained in the last twenty years, use the information to improve the situation, not to shut down the LMS.
2. Who will do what?
Before starting implementation, it is important to know what you want to use the LMS for, who will use it and when. This requires the cooperation of all involved business units. Each of them should clearly specify what it wants and does not want. Such concerns are; who should be able to access the training materials, where will they access the content, who should be able to upload new materials, what the materials should look like, how technical problems should be solved, etc.
3. What are you waiting for?
You can neither know the answers to all your questions in advance nor anticipate all user reactions. Do not wait too long, first start testing the proposed functions on a small group of users. Users are interested in content and not in the LMS. Provide them with training content as soon as possible.
4. Do you have interesting content?
User's attention is gained through the content, no matter how great the technical solutions of your new LMS, if your training content is not able attract the users' attention your LMS system will not be used. Marc Niemes recommends to start with a few testing courses for small groups of employees.When creating content, assume that the LMS will never be the first source for your people to turn to when they need some information. They will always start with colleagues and search engines. Only then you can attract them to e-learning.
5. Do you have a written implementation process?
Your goals and expectations from the LMS should be carefully written in the form of a documented implementation process. All the direct participants of the implementation should be aware of this document. That is the only way to ensure that the responsible people will follow a plan and deal with possible problems.
6. How much you want to invest?
Organizations often forget to allocate enough funds for high-quality content in their training systems. "You have that beautiful LMS/DVD player running, but guess what we are playing? Our old out-of-date VHS tapes copied onto DVD," explains Marc Niemes. HR should look for educational content from the view of corporate objectives, the level of competence and performance of individual employees. That is also why it is better to start a small.
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