Let’s play a game of “would you rather?” My kids love this game as they often lose themselves in giggles coming up with two of the worst possible scenarios. While we hem and haw about the impossibility of choosing the option we’d rather do, we remind ourselves that it’s just for the fun of the game and won’t actually be something we have to go through with.
Wouldn’t it be great if the same were true when selecting a learning management system (LMS)? Those who have been through this before will knowingly roll their eyes and bemoan their naivete when they were promised that a system really could “do it all.” The hard truth is, choosing an LMS is like being stuck in a never-ending game of “would you rather,” only this time you really do have to live with the choices you make.
At eMoney, our team recently went through this process and came out on the other side with some lessons learned along the way:
Tip No. 1: Know Your Audience
It can be easy to get caught up in the back end of an LMS, ensuring that your IDs and LMS admin team can easily accomplish their daily tasks. Equally important however, is the user experience for your learners. An LMS is the gatekeeper to all your learning content. If a learner can’t navigate it, or gets frustrated by one too many clicks, your participation and engagement numbers will decline. Take time to define your learner personas and ensure that the LMS can meet their needs.
Tip No. 2: Start With Customer Reviews
Before you visit vender websites, read customer reviews. Websites such as G2 provide a wealth of information from platform users. Take your time and read through multiple reviews to get a real sense of a vendor’s customer service capabilities, ability to integrate with key tech stack partners, and end-user experience. Take note of the date of the reviews and ensure that you are looking through those that are within the past year. While older reviews may have useful information, technology venders make frequent updates and smaller firms are often bought out by larger ones. These changes can have good and bad effects on how customers view the platform.
Tip No. 3: Use Your Network
The learning and development (L&D) community is alive and strong. Reach out to your peers in L&D, engage with your online communities, and use your LMS search as a good conversation starter at networking events. I assure you that everyone will have a story to share. (However, keep in mind that everyone’s needs are different, so while some opinions may be useful, others you may want to take with a grain of salt.)
Tip No. 4: Create an RFP Checklist
A good request for proposal (RFP) checklist will be rigorous enough to weed out vendors that don’t align with your needs but will not be so restrictive that it requires finding a unicorn that may not actually exist. Remember, no LMS does everything, no matter what the salesperson says. As you create your list of requirements, take time to meet with other stakeholder groups, such as your security or internal systems teams, who may also have requirements. We used a spreadsheet for our RFP (sourced from a fellow L&D professional) and divided up our requirements into tabs: user experience, security, and contract terms and costs. This made it easier to review and compare the responses. It’s also helpful to have a notes column where vendors can provide additional context about whether they meet the requirement.
Tip No. 5: Be Courageous in Decision-making
FOMO (fear of missing out) is prevalent in the technology space. There are hundreds of LMS and LMS “Lite” platforms, with new ones cropping up seemingly daily. It can be easy to get stuck in a rut of second guessing yourself and continually adding new vendors to the not so short, short list. At eMoney, we set up a funnel approach, with five distinct phases to help us narrow down to one vendor. Our short list was comprised of six vendors that we invited to participate in our RFP. From there we chose four to conduct a demo of their product. Three were selected to move ahead to a scripted demo (a list of tasks that each vendor was asked to conduct live while our team observed), two made it to the sandbox phase, and one was chosen to present to our corporate leadership team for approval.
Tip No. 6: Test, Test and Test Again
During the scripted demo phase, we asked vendors to conduct common tasks, such as importing a course, running a report and adding a user. In this phase, we wanted to see how easy the platform was to navigate for someone who knew it well. During the sandbox phase, we tested the platform’s intuitiveness. Our team started with the same list of tasks and timed themselves on how long it took to figure out how to do it. If help was needed, we used the online help resources to get a sense of how well the platform supports new users. We invited stakeholders from other teams to test out additional tasks such as integrations with Salesforce and Zoom. We utilized the expertise of an LMS consultant to test more complex scenarios. In essence, we tried to test as many situations as possible to ensure there would be no surprises once we got to implementation.
Tip No. 7: Don’t Rush
If you are being pressured to sign a deal quickly, that’s a red flag that something may not be what it seems. LMS contracts are often multi-year, and it can be nearly impossible to get out of a contract once it’s signed. Take your time and do your due diligence. A good vendor will appreciate your thorough approach and will offer up resources to assist in your research. During our search, we had the opportunity to speak directly with a current client of the LMS we were pursuing. Although the call was set up by the vendor, they did not attend, which allowed us to be transparent and direct in asking our questions. Not only did this act build trust with the vendor, but also it helped provide input for the business case we presented to our corporate leaders.
Tip No. 8: Think Ahead
One of the key quotes coming out of our customer conversation was this, “Don’t choose an LMS for what you need today, choose one for what you’ll need 3-5 years from now.” This quote really resonated with our team as we were in the process of revolutionizing our customer education program. While our engagement numbers today would indicate a low user participation rate, our vision for the future includes several improvements that are expected to dramatically increase the number of users engaged with training. This was one of the factors we took into account when structuring a multi-year contract with the LMS provider.
Tip No. 9: Educate Your Corporate Leadership
An LMS does not come cheap. While some are more costly than others, depending on the level of functionality you need, chances are that you will need corporate-level sign off on your chosen LMS. While your leadership team means well, it can be frustrating at times to explain why you can’t manage with Excel or whatever other tool you’ve been using to precariously hold things together so far. For our team, the “sell” was even more difficult. Two years ago, we had gone through an LMS search that resulted in a high-profile mess. After signing, we realized that the system’s functionality did not fully align with what we had been told. This resulted in many painful lessons learned and a good amount of skepticism when we embarked on LMS search No. 2. This time around, we had to not only explain why we needed an LMS, but also what we did differently to ensure a better outcome. We utilized external research from a variety of sources, customer reviews, and internal user research to make our compelling case.
Tip No. 10: Remember: No LMS Is Perfect
No LMS is perfect. No LMS will handle every requirement. You will have unpleasant surprises when you get into implementation. You will still have to answer the question “would you rather?” when neither option seems great. However, if you have gone through your evaluation process carefully and thoroughly, these choices will get easier. With the right mindset, they may even cause you to wonder why you prefer a certain process to begin with. Perhaps the limitations of the LMS will cause you to consider new ways of doing things that could be more efficient and useful than the old way.
Searching for an LMS is an exciting time, full of possibility. The ability to choose a high-impact learning tool does not come around that often. So, take a deep breath, steel your nerves, and get ready to have fun. If you do it right, you might have a clear winner for your “would you rather” dilemma.
