5 steps to follow for LMS implementation success

1. Establish LMS use cases

HR leaders should work with others at their company to establish LMS use cases before embarking on a search.

Companies often reach out to vendors before defining the LMS use cases that are specific to them, said John Leh, CEO at Talented Learning LLC, an LMS-focused research and consulting firm located in Bloomsburg, Pa.

As Leh said, HR and learning and development (L&D) leaders should first ask questions like the following:

• What business goals are driving the need for an LMS?
• What changes is the company attempting to manifest with an LMS?
• Who will the LMS users be?
• What types of training is the company focusing on with the LMS? Potential examples include compliance training, product training, sales training and management training.
• Will the company be creating or repurposing training materials for sale to external parties?
• Will managers need to receive reports that document whether employees have completed required training?

Establishing a solid set of use cases is crucial to LMS implementation success because doing so enables HR and L&D leaders to zero in on the features they need and those they don't, Leh said. For example, if an organization will not be selling its training content to third parties, an e-commerce module is a waste of money.

"If you do your homework upfront, you can find the specialist that does exactly what you want," Leh said.

2. Conduct a training needs analysis

Another important early step is establishing a company's training needs.

These assessments should include the following factors, said Khris Bhattan, president of RTG Solutions Group, a consulting and training company located in Tampa, Fla.:

• The skills that the organization requires its new hires to possess.
• The current skill level of existing employees, which will, in turn, inform any upskilling programs.
• The ways in which different employee demographics learn best.

Studying employees' preferred learning styles is important because today's work environment includes a wide range of ages, Bhattan said.

"We have two new generations that are entering the workforce that learn completely differently than we have in the past," he said.

3. Define training ROI

HR leaders should possess a clear vision of what their company needs from a new LMS prior to investing in one.

Measuring current success in the areas that the company is targeting for training will make it obvious later whether the LMS is delivering, Bhattan said.

For example, a manufacturing plant could be producing an unacceptably high number of defective parts because employees on the factory floor haven't received adequate instruction on how to prevent the defects. HR and L&D leaders can use the number of defective parts over time to establish whether the LMS is succeeding.

Demonstrating these specific areas where employees need more training will help justify the LMS purchase to the C-suite, Bhattan said.

"You have to come up with some hard numbers," he said.

4. Enlist the necessary stakeholders

The people who should be involved in an LMS implementation vary depending on the LMS's use cases and the organization's structure.

Some departments that might be involved in the implementation include the following, said Petra Mayer, CEO at Petra Mayer & Associates Consulting Inc., a training-focused consultancy located in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada:

IT

"The technical team will definitely be heavily involved and has to be, because a learning management system doesn't typically exist in isolation," Mayer said.

Training data often should be linked to the company's human resources information system (HRIS), and IT must enable that integration. IT might also oversee certain LMS functionality, such as single sign-on.

HR and L&D

A company's learning and development department, if one exists, would obviously be part of the initiative.

In addition, stakeholders in the human resources department need to be involved if internal employees will use the LMS.

Sales and marketing

The sales and marketing departments should be part of the LMS implementation if the LMS includes training content for external learners, such as customers.

Content owners

The employees who are in charge of developing and managing training materials should have a seat at the table because they need to be familiar with the LMS's features and capabilities. For example, the new system might include AI tools to help users create questions.

"If [the content owners] come from a system that doesn't have that [and are moving] to a system that does, your content owners need to be trained on these opportunities and the risks that come with [AI]," Mayer said.

Support from senior management is also necessary for a successful LMS implementation.

"If they couldn't care less about what's happening in the training, that trickles down in the organization, and people will resist training," Mayer said.

5. Write a comprehensive RFP

A request for proposal should include a list of all the features that an organization requires of its LMS, such as gamification, social learning or AI.

HR and L&D leaders should consider these factors when evaluating software candidates as well, Leh said:

• Whether the software complies with industry-specific regulations, such as those that govern financial firms or healthcare institutions.
• Whether the software is compliant with data privacy and security regulations, like GDPR.
• How the vendor approaches data migration in cases where the new LMS is consolidating content and histories from existing learning systems.
• Whether or not the vendor provides a project manager who will help oversee the deployment process.
• Whether technical support meets company needs. For example, a regional company might only need assistance to be available during normal business hours in its area, but a global organization might require 24/7 support and need it to be available in multiple languages.

Examining these factors speeds up the selection process, Leh said. For example, a company that requires project management support will quickly reject a vendor that doesn't offer it.

Carolyn Heinze is a Paris-based freelance writer. She covers several technology and business areas, including HR software and sustainability.