How to Select an LMS that Align with Your Organization’s E-learning Vision

There is an old Indian story about blind men and an elephant. The story goes - once upon a time, there lived six blind men in a village. One day their neighbor told them that an elephant with a traveling circus is passing through.  Since none of them have any clue what an elephant is, so they all went and try to figure out by touching a different part of the elephant.

"Hey, the elephant is shaped like a cylinder ," said the first man who touched the leg.

"No no, the elephant is like a rope," said the second man who touched the tail.

"I disagree! it is like a thick tree branch," said the third man who touched the trunk.

"I said it is more like a big hand fan" said the fourth man who touched the ear.

"No way! It feels like a huge wall," said the fifth man who touched the side.

"It is like a solid pipe," Said the sixth man who touched the tusk.

In the e-learning world, working with your stakeholder group in evaluating and selecting a learning management system (LMS) is a lot like getting the six blind men to agree on what an elephant is like. Everyone has a myopic idea of what an LMS should do, while neglecting to look at the collective view and the overarching needs of the organization as a whole. While it is valid to hear everyone out, there is a danger in jumping into conclusions based on one person’s truth.  

Often times, technology drives the solution. We get hang up on the tools and lost sight of to what purpose are these tools serving us.

To start from the very beginning, an organization must have an e-learning vision in place. A vision statement articulates what you want the organization to be. Ideally, a strategy (or strategies) needs to follow with measurable objectives on what you are going to do to attain that vision. However, based on my experience, getting your stakeholder groups to commit to a set of quantifiable, accountable, and time-sensitive objectives are like herding a thousand cats. Often times, we are under tight deadlines to roll out an LMS implementation while hammering the plan on how the organization will actually carry out the vision.

So, in the absence of clearly defined objectives, how does one align this e-learning vision to the selection and evaluation of an LMS? I am sharing you my recent experience in working with a Western Canadian public sector organization and how we apply the vision statement in zooming in to the type of LMS functions and features we need.

Having newly formed an e-learning governance committee, this organization came up with the following vision statement to be shared across the enterprise and three subsidiaries:

To implement and sustain technology-supported training and self-directed e-learning that is strategic, responsive, engaging, measurable, scalable, and collaborative across the organization and all of its operating companies.

As far as a vision statement goes, it vividly describes the ideal state we like to achieve. However, to make it useful in guiding the evaluation and selection process of an LMS, we need to take it further. We need to think about how a system can support this vision. What kind of functions and features do we need to look for in an LMS?

We began our process by extending the vision statement to something more concrete. By concrete, what I mean is to be able to provide definitions at a more nuance level. We need to set criteria that we can evaluate against. For example, when we stated that e-learning needs to be collaborative, what does successful or useful collaboration look like for us? What do we mean by collaboration? Is it the ability for staff from different department to cross-fertilize learning ideas? In looking for features that an LMS can provide, collaboration could mean having a wiki or a forum that everyone in the organization can utilize. However, until your group has a shared definition of what collaboration is, it would be like describing parts of an elephant based on where everyone is standing in relation to the elephant.

Below is an example on how the e-learning vision developed for my client is broken down into more nuanced definitions and examples of LMS features and functions that could potentially support each definition.

To have a shared understanding on how your enterprise-wide e-learning vision translates into LMS functions and features is a starting point. It is by no means to replace measurable and observable learning strategic objectives. An LMS is a platform for hosting, delivering, and tracking learning initiatives, and it should be evaluated as a supporting tool to a larger scheme. With time permits, and as e-learning maturity grows, organizations need to put in deliberate effort and appropriate expertise in setting the learning agenda and milestones.