Choosing a Learning Management System for your company can be overwhelming. There are over 400 LMS vendors in the market, and each one has its strengths and shortcomings.
There is no “best” Learning Management System, but there is the right one for you. Follow the steps outlined below, you can take charge of the process to find the ideal solution for your company.
Steps for finding the right LMS for your business-
Align Your Project with Your Purpose
Before you begin, stop to think about your learning project in the larger context of your culture, purpose, and strategy – who you are as a company, where you are going, and how you will get there.
- What you need to do to meet your current challenges?
- What will your workforce need to be in five years?
- Is your workforce engaged and aligned with your mission? If not, you may want to seize this opportunity use your learning management system as a transformational tool . Your LMS will touch everyone, so using it in a change communication strategy can improve your results.
- Are any organizational changes coming? Mergers or acquisitions? What is your strategy for assimilation and how will you use your LMS to support it?
Assess the Current System
Ask your stakeholders where your current system is falling short of your needs. Ask the people in your audiences, your Learning Management System administrators, and your learning providers what is making things difficult for them.
Asking the question will sow seeds of dissatisfaction with your current system. You can leverage the dissatisfaction to help motivate your stakeholders to support the change.
Be as detailed as possible. Your findings will help in your needs assessment.
Assess Learning Needs
Consider both your current and future needs. For example, if you do not currently use a mobile platform but plan to in the future, you will want to think about choosing a provider who can enable mobile when you need it.
Here are some things to consider:
- What audiences do you serve? Employees, contingent workers, extended enterprise, partners, customers?
- What type of learning activities will you need to deploy? You may be considering moving from asynchronous to synchronous learning, or using more just in time video learning.
- Do you need an ecommerce solution? Will it be public or private?
- What content integration standards do you require? AICC/SCORM[JM2] , Tin Can/Experience API, or custom solutions?
- Will you need to migrate learning content, activity registrations, and completions from your current system?
Assess Your Limitations
Assessing the capability and technical limitations of your users will help you determine your needs. If your curriculum developers need to upload their learning activities, do they have the skills?
- Whether you will need to improve the skills of your curriculum development staff, and how much of your content you will need to outsource.
- The level of support you will need for your audiences. If you have expert resources, your staff may be able to handle user support. If not, implementation partners will offer several support levels from an occasional help call to complete managed services.
- The capability of your administrative staff. Balance the features you need with what your people can handle. You may need ongoing support.
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