If you spend more than ten minutes at an e-learning conference, then one of the speakers is bound to mention the term ‘LMS’ (or learning management systems in all its glory). After all, LMS vendors were one of the original driving forces behind the formation of the e-learning market itself. And they are still a major force in the e-learning market today.

I can hear you thinking, ‘So if they were a major force in e-learning, you must have e-talked about them already?’, and you’d be right! But something happened recently that has made me think I still need to e-talk some more about LMSs. What has led me to think this, you may ask? Well, a couple of weeks ago eLearnity ran a corporate roundtable to discuss best practice and realities of blended learning with nine or ten heads of learning/e-learning from major corporates. All of the organisations present could be described as early adopters of e-learning, and most of the attendees are common conference speakers at the main European and UK learning and e-learning conferences. In short, they are experienced, they know what they are talking about, and maybe most importantly, they have worked out what doesn’t work as well as what does.

What has all this to do with LMSs? Well, quite simple really, it’s relevant because every organisation in this discussion cited LMS as one of its largest learning challenges this year. And for most of them, it was the number one challenge.

I have to say, this was a bit of a shock for me. Yes, I already know LMS is important to all of them; after all, they are big employers spending lots on training and the LMS is their key tool to better manage and direct that training activity. But there’s a difference between ‘being important’ and ‘one of your top learning challenges’.

So how come these experienced early adopter companies are still saying LMS is a big deal for them? After all, I certainly remember having similar discussions at roundtables three years ago, at the peak of the e-learning hype curve. Why are they now re-focusing so heavily on an issue that was supposedly resolved two or three years ago? Well, basically because it wasn’t – resolved, that is. That doesn’t mean they didn’t end up implementing an LMS the first time round; usually they did. But what they implemented hasn’t turned out to be what they really needed longer term. What seems to be happening now is that they are:

* re-purchasing because their original choice does not meet future needs
* jettisoning an internally developed LMS for a more viable future platform
* rationalising multiple departmental LMSs to a single LMS
* moving to a truly global LMS platform, and
* re-evaluating future needs as part of an overall HR strategy and platform.

The key words in all of the above are ‘future’, ‘global’, ‘single platform’ and ‘strategy’. Driven by larger structural business changes (and often by external regulatory or market changes too), large corporates are re-evaluating learning and people development at a more strategic level. This is resulting in a shift in strategy for learning management, and significant change in the platform to support it. Current solutions might work at a tactical level, but they often struggle to make the grade in this strategic reappraisal.

Not all of our roundtable participants were looking at a new LMS. Some of them were happy with their LMS choice, but not necessarily happy with how they are currently using it. Their priority is therefore to extend their use of the LMS rather than changing the platform itself, moving it to manage all learning on a strategic basis, globally across the organisation. Achieving this involves facing many complex political and cultural challenges as well as technical and data challenges. Making an LMS work strategically is non-trivial, but the benefits seem exponentially larger.

So LMS is still a big deal. In fact, it seems to be a bigger deal than ever before. What are some of the key lessons? Even if started tactically and small, you need also to make yourself a future path that is organisation-wide and learning-wide. Business change will drive learning change. Predicting that is difficult, and even some of the corporate leaders are discovering the need to rapidly reinvent their approach. You need to give yourself options and not believe you can definitely provide all the answers now. Of course, all of this is easier to agree in an organisation that has been through the LMS learning curve already. If you are a newbie to this, act like one and get some good advice; accelerate your learning curve and de-risk your decisions. And don’t believe that turning up with a blue-chip business card is an automatic passport to success. Remember, the other guys had that too!

David Wilson is managing director of eLearnity, a leading independent learning analyst and consultancy, which he founded in 1996. He can be contacted on +44 (0) 20 7917 1870 or at DavidW@elearnity.com

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