Learnings from the frontlines of the LMS World

"We need to streamline our training, how do we do it? What features are available in the learning system?” And “All our training is done face to face and now we need to do it digital, can you help me?”

These are some of the questions I often hear in my field working with sales. I’ve met with many different people, organisations and agendas in search for the right Learning Management System. And one thing that’s been on my mind lately has been the patterns and concepts that pop up during my talks and deep dives.??

When it comes to learning management systems, there are key areas which, when set into structure, set you up for the right start and will lay a strong foundation for success.?

I’ll do my best to break down these areas here,?and hope it can inspire, enlighten and perhaps even challenge how to approach exploring the world of learning platforms.?

Purpose, Purpose Purpose

“Learning is important”, I say this everyday, I hear it everyday and I read it posted everywhere online. But why? What is important about learning and?development? I’ve seen data indicating that the ability to learn and grow is among the top 3 criteria for new hires selecting a job. High performing organisations attempt to facilitate learning and upskilling as key areas of their organisation - but why? It’s not just the learning, it's also the context of the learning. It's about being able to lift and develop talent and support business operations in the right areas at the right time.?

Learning is great on its own, aligning learning with organisational context is where the magic happens.‘What are we trying to achieve with our learning strategy?’ is a question I often ask the managers, directors, HR coordinators that I meet along the way. It could vary, some organisations have a need to handle compliance training, document it as a business critical aspect. Others may want to foster an upskilling culture that will allow their people to develop, grow and achieve inside the organisation, to retain talent. On the opposite side of that, it could?help reduce churn. Onboarding and training have clear benefits of this - data indicates that 83% of top performing organisations have a thorough onboarding process. There’s a real reason for putting the purpose into words: - What are we trying to achieve and how will it impact our business if we don’t achieve this??

The IT Landscape and Enablement

There are so many systems in organisations today, sometimes it can feel like there’s a system for every department, every team and even every task. Adding systems adds complexity, the more systems you have the higher the chance to lose your learners / users. Having an LMS stand alone is a pitfall that can be avoided by looking into integration options. So what does integrations mean, practically and tangibly??

Integrating two systems can be done in many different ways, the most common one is to sync employee data between two systems, for example,?an HR tool and the LMS, this means when you create an employee in the HR database, that person also gets created as a learner in the learning platform. Other integrations could be into Teams, into ERP’s (Enterprise resource planning) or BI (Business intelligence) tools. The important takeaway is matching your ‘IT landscape’ together - the simpler way to access your systems the better your engagement will be, depending on your need try and stay as agile as possible. Hiding your learning platform away with a different login in a different portal can be a major roadblock to success.?Meet the learners where they are, where they work and where they spend the majority of their day.

The system must be available on the channels you work and also, perhaps one of the most important factors for enablement - Be. Mobile.

I’ve seen internal stats saying as high as 89% of users engage with their learning materials on their smartphones, making sure your system is mobile responsive is a good way to help ensure easy engagement.?

Learning Should Be Dynamic - Just Like Your Business

Businesses have many moving parts, things change at such a rapid pace that sometimes there’s a legitimate concern that learning content can become outdated faster than the resources available to create or update that content. The LMS system of choice absolutely must be able to update content ongoingly and also create content fast and easy. While using an external authoring tool and then importing the learning into SCORM can seem cost-effective and maybe even easy, it can present real challenges.?

SCORMs are a set of trainings that are fused together, it’s difficult and time consuming to edit and update, in worst case you’d have to create a completely new one. This makes you less agile and less likely to have a dedicated area where it’s easy to ‘find the right information at the right place at the right time.’ A way to stay flexible is to combine content bought and create your own around it. Having training that has broad topics can help you have content at hand that is easy and optimized in a certain topic. Then add your own unique content, and ask: “What does this topic mean in our organisation's reality?”?

Flexibility is another key area when it comes to learning, being flexible in the way to create, update and distribute learning comes in different sizes. One of the best ways I’ve seen so far is by being able to automate some aspects of the way learning is shared and distributed. I’ve learned how there’s a shift happening in the way we view learning. We've steadily been moving from thinking of learning in isolated courses and training to speaking about ‘Learning Journeys’. This shift also sets demands on how we can structure and share learning throughout the organisation, being able to automate a ‘Learning journey’ is simply a way to structure and sequence the way a training path unlocks and for a learner. This provides extrinsic motivation and engagement from the ‘unlocking’ of paths and intrinsic motivation from developing towards a specific goal - be that upskilling or personal growth.??

Learning Should Involve VS Inform

‘Learning by doing’ is a common phrase, it’s certainly been around for longer than I have. So it’s always surprising for me to hear when organisations have their learning setup with long videos, pdf’s, powerpoints and perhaps a simple yes/no quiz at the end of it. That’s not engaging and it can at worst result in learners disengaging and being uninterested in the training, they might begin viewing learning as something they ‘have to do’ instead of something ‘they want to do’. A way to tackle this head on is to approach learning with learner involvement in mind, this could for example be using elements or mechanics of gamification. This doesn’t mean that it has to be things exploding across the screens and bells and whistles going off, while racing to achieve a high-score. Instead it can be simple mechanics that allow learners to wake up and start moving - Drag and drop is my favorite, I’m still unsure why, maybe it’s something dating back to my childhood and my love for puzzles.?

Other mechanics could be sequencing, hotspots, fill in the blanks - things that make us use our brains and use our fingers. That’s what gamification should be doing, not chasing high scores to achieve presents. The reward should be the learning and not a free cup of coffee in my humble opinion.?

While we’re at it, what’s the best practice for creating learning then? Microlearning is a good way to think about learning when beginning to create learning or training. If learning is short and easy to get through, 5 - 15 minutes for example. It makes it easier for the learner to engage and also digest. I’m sure we’ve all seen the surveys or training modules that say ‘1.5hr to complete’?and suddenly remember we left the washing machine on or that hole in the roof we haven’t fixed. Bite-sized learning, that’s easy to engage with when we have the time, that can be repeated and stretched over time helps us work with real change in behaviour rather than checking off a list of subjects that none of us will remember in 5 days. Learning should be taken in smaller doses, like vitamins. We wouldn’t eat the whole vitamine glass at once either.?

My Final Thoughts and a Checklist for You

When it comes to learning there’s no one-size fits all solution. Just like I don’t believe that digital learning will ever completely erase or replace physical learning. I believe in a blended approach - digital has amazing benefits but so does the physical, especially when it comes to the human component, which I feel we sometimes forget. One of my favorite examples of how digital learning was able to add value and be combined with the physical is from a client case: This client used to host a 3 day seminar, where all employees were flown out to a location, from all over the world. Checked into hotels and were all occupied for 3 full days. By implementing a digital learning solution, this client was able to set up a learning path that began before the seminar started, so when attendee’s arrived they were up to speed and ready to dive in deep. This cut 2 days off the seminar, saving costs - and also because everyone was ready and prepared, much of the time spent on the seminar was concrete and tangible, rather than bringing people up to speed on concepts. Real business impact by applying blended learning. I love it.?

If you’ve made it this far, I’d like to thank you by leaving you with this short checklist which perhaps could help you:?

Considering Digital Learning Checklist

• What’s the scope? Having a concrete area or case to roll out is often an indicator of successful projects
• Ask yourself, ‘What are we trying to achieve and how will it impact our business if we don’t achieve this?’?
• IT landscapes are important, the simpler way to access your systems the better. Be where your users are.?Be agile
• Combining learning off the shelf and your own unique training helps you be flexible and fast
• Training / learning should reflect the reality of your learners. Remember to put learning into context of your industry / organisation
• Bite-sized learning, 5 - 15 min is a good rule of thumb for how long learning content should take. Learners will appreciate it and engage in more!?
• Using elements of gamification is good to help learning stick, engage users and helps completion rates
• Blended learning is a good way to streamline training / learning and may even help cut costs

Thanks for your time?

About the Author: Arun Khan is a Solution Sales Executive at Learningbank.io, a leading Nordic Learning Lifecycle Platform.?

Credit picture source: Vectorjuice