Steps to take to select and setup an LMS for your organization

1. Eric VanAuken

2. When you start to think of building out an LMS you
should look first ask yourself the following
questions before even getting into which LMS to
choose and how to set it up
 What am I trying to accomplish with the LMS?
 How does an LMS fit in with my overall business strategy?
 What information will the LMS bring to the table that I don't already have?
 How and where can I use this new information?
 What is the business impact to support an LMS and training organization?
 What are the integration points that make the most sense for the integration into
my larger IT architecture?

3.  Step back and look at what you have and visualize where you want to take the
organization
 Review with your lines of business and sales teams what their needs are (Get the
voice of the internal Customer)
 Review with your Customers what they need and how you can best serve them
(Get the Voice of your external Customers)
 Identify how you currently delivery training. Do you mainly do Classroom
training, self paced training, Webinars…etc
 Put together straw man of what you think needs to be done
 Pull together stake holders and key customers and review your straw man. Add
the details to the straw man and build a path forward.

4. The next set of questions to ask will focus you on
what to look for in an LMS.
 Am I only looking to train internal staff or will I be training external individuals as
well?
 Am I going to monetize the LMS and will I need one that allows for e Commerce?
 What training approach will I take? Online, Instructor led, Virtual, blended ...etc?
 Do I have any regulatory needs?
 How am I going to manage the people coming into the LMS and those no longer
with the organization?
 What type of reporting is important to me?
 Am I going to purchase content or will my teams create their own content or is it a
combination of both?

5.  Identify what groups are matrix-ed into your training approach.
 With the key players from each group, discuss the potential new approach and
how it will integrate with the key players, especially the revenue streams. Gain
their input.
 Look globally and try to not focus on your process only. While the solution may
be best for your training team it may not be best for the company or more
importantly your Customers.
 When all input has been received circle back with the team and share what you
identified. Ask for their support as you manage the change. Get someone from
each of their teams involved. Once you have that buy in you will be able to
achieve your goals.

6.  Adult Learners:
 Start with a self paced training prior to doing an instructor lead training. This preps them
for the hands on or practical work
 Have a face to face Instructor led training. Focus in on applicable activities to the task at
hand.
 Follow up with short and specific periodic refresher training in one of the following
methods. Face to face with trainer or supervisor, Webinars, or Self paced training with
quizzes
 Service Staff: These folks tend to like clean crisp training that has no frills and is to the point.
Focus in on hands on and detailed type of material
 Sales Staff: This group tends to do best with a softer approach to training. Spend more time
in face to face and role play. Any online training should be something that they can use as
job aids after the fact.
 R&D Staff: Like the service staff keep the training crisp and no frills but aim the material on
the theory more and less hands on.
 General Staff: Make the training shorter and to the point. Focus the training on how it helps
or impacts their day to day job. Do not overload with trying to fit a one size training fits all.
This will just discourage the individuals.
 Leadership: These type of training need to be more visual and higher level. Also the
training should be focused on general scenarios as they can and should apply them to the
specifics that they need. Remember this is leadership training and not coaching.

7. Prepare for the search process and involve the right
staff up front
 Get IT involved right away if you have an IT department. Having an overall
coheasive Architecture is key to longer term success.
 Build out a requirements document with all of the staff and departments that will
be using the tool. Rank what is a high medium and low priority.
 There are many online resources that give you great comparisons of the features of
each LMS.
 Reach out to the vendors and request a demo and if possible an instance of their
LMS to play around in to test it out.
 Really spend time looking at the key features and how easy it is to use from an
administrators standpoint.
 Review how easy it is to change the look and feel as you will want to keep this
fresh.

8.  Job Profile: Also known as Groups or roles. This is where you will hold all the
training for any role that a person does. Usually a person has more than one role.
(Remember Jobs and roles are different, Jobs are what you hire someone is as. The
roles make up their job)
 Learning Plan: Also know as Learning Path, or Curriculum - (Some even call this
courses but they are not adhering to standards.) This is the bucket that holds all of
the training for any given role. It can be a combination of on line courses,
Instructor led training, webinars...etc. There can be many learning plans assigned
to any given job profile.
 Courses: Typically this is an online course.
 Instructor Led Training (ILT): Also known as classroom training. As stated this is
any training that requires students to be in a classroom setting.
 Virtual Instructor Led Training (VILT): Also known as webinars and Virtual
Classroom Training (VCT). This is where you deliver training via remote meeting
or remote tools. Think Zoom or some other tool

9. Some features to look for that will make
administration much easier
 Does the LMS have bulk load capabilities that you can do? This will allow for
migration and updates to be much easier and save tones of time.
 Does the LMS integrate to your HRIS system or talent management system? Make
sure it at least supports the appropriate API's to bring in and remove staff as well
as the supervisory structure.
 Does the LMS use dynamic groups that let you place people into the correct
curriculum or learning plans for the role/s that they are in? This will ease the back
end administration activities if it can be automated by rules.
 Does the LMS allow for people to be in many different groups/job profiles? This
will allow for people to be assigned to all the roles and training that they do.
 Does the LMS allow for manual over rides or changes based as well as system
feeds and dynamic groupings? You will always have some manual changes that
need to be done. Make sure that the system allows for it to be done in a simple
way.

10.  While some LMS systems have good reporting, many do not. Strongly review the
reporting capabilities and see if they can dashboard the results. You will need to
have this as you start to fully utilize the system.
 Does the LMS have the ability to limit what the users see based on groups or Job
codes...etc? This is key to allow people to only see what you want them to see.
 Does the LMS allow for customizable messages to be sent out based on different
types of training or locations.?
 Does the LMS support multiple languages?
 How easy is it to configure pages? You want to avoid any LMS that makes you
write in HTML code. Stay with the ones that use widgets and pre designed display
features. You can always put your marketing colors on the pages but you want
something that an admin can configure rather than a programmer whenever you
need changes
 Help yourself by creating a code for courses and groupings of courses. This will
help you sort and more quickly find the content you want once your LMS gets
fully deployed..

11.  Does the LMS support Drip training. Are you able to have courses/classes
assigned automatically by the system x period of time after they completed the
previous training element. This is key for adult learning.
 Can you create the learning plan by placing an ILT in it without having to update
the learning plan every time you add a new session to the ILT? This is key if you
are delivering the same training multiple times. You do not want to have to go
back into the learning plan every time to add a new session into it. That becomes
an administrative headache.
 Can you build custom BI reports? You will find most of the systems will not have
the reporting capabilities u need or want so it is key to be able to build your own
reports.
 Can you customize your training certificate? You need to be able to do this.
 Can you assign a training certificate to multiple levels. IE. a certificate for a course
and one for a ILT and one for a learning plan and yet one more for a job profile.
These are key as you need to have them assigned at a level that makes sense and
qualifies them appropriately. Many times it will be multiple different certificates.

12.  Reach out to a variety of vendors. Share your requirements documents with them.
Make sure they address how they will be able to meet your requirements. Ask for
examples of how they can meet them if you have not seen it in their demo.
 Discuss system build and training options that you will get from them Some will
be free some will charge. Typically you get what you pay for and depending on
the price point it is well worth the upfront money to have thenm build it out with
you watching for the first time. This is a great learning experience for your
support staff.
 Review with your larger team all the options. Narrow it down to two or three
options.
 Ask for time in their systems to get familiar and to test out all of the key features
you want to see.
 When its time to negotiate pricing, Play one vendor off the other. Do not be afraid
to push hard as this is a longer term yearly investment that you will not likely
change for a while. This locks you in and you do not want to be locked in at a bad
price point. They know once your a customer you typically will stay with them for
a while.

13. This is where the art of Organizational change really takes place.
Stay in touch with the team daily. Work with all members. Remember your best asset is
your relationships with the team and the leadership.
 Be flexible in your approach. Do not hold fast to the initial vision. Things will change
along the way and if you drive rigidly to the initial solution you will loose the team
and you will not get the best solution.
 Get to know the entire team and build relationships with all members and all
leadership. Remember you will have greater success if you are leading rather than
managing a project/change.
 Remember you are part of the team as well and you will need to roll up your sleeves
and put in the effort along with the rest of the team. That is what leaders do!!!
 Don’t be afraid to make adjustments to the team and to roles along the way. If you do,
do it in a respectable way and in a way that all voices are heard and everyone can save
face.
 Have fun and make sure you and the team celebrate successes and enjoy the process.
This is Key to not burning out the team.