5 Considerations Selecting an LMS
15th April 2020
Do you know which Learning Management System suits your organisation’s needs and system? James Sellers, Marshall E-Learning’s General Manager offers 5 things to consider before you make that final decision.
1 – It must be easy for YOU to use
All providers will typically use phrases such as ‘easy to use’ and ‘so simple’, but who are they talking to? When it comes to LMS administration, the level of experience of the admin will vary a great deal. You may be an IT specialist, or you might be a HR manager using a Learning Management System (LMS) for the first time.
To ensure an LMS is right for you, people who will use it the most should carry out thorough testing.
An LMS should be intuitive and guide you towards the correct place when you’re not sure. Signposts are often helpful, along with friendly support resources and guides.
You need to find a system that’s intuitive to use, and ‘so simple’.
2 – Can it be tailored to fit in with YOUR organisation?
Every organisation has different learning and development requirements, and a good LMS should help to facilitate this. Make sure it is feasible to tailor the LMS to operate in a way that makes sense according to your organisation’s processes.
Try to think about the ideal learning journey for one of your members of staff. What will they expect to see, and how will they expect to be taught?
Not all systems will work straight out of the box, so ensure you can tailor your new LMS to your needs. Ideally, the provider will be hands-on to help with this.
3 – Does it offer flexibility?
To be successful, organisations must adapt and be more flexible than ever before. A good LMS will support different ways of working, such as:
- Your organisation needs to work remotely, unexpectedly, for two months
- Your workforce shrinks or grows by 50% in a short period
- Your marketing department tells you that all branding has changed overnight
When choosing an LMS, make sure that it can react to your organisation’s changing needs. Expect the unexpected, and judge the LMS by how it can handle those changes.
4 – Will you have a good level of ownership?
You could run the most powerful, feature-packed system on the market, but when you need to make a small change for a report or admin account, there are hoops to jump through.
An external organisation will probably provide your LMS, so make sure it is quick and easy to make critical changes. Although the product rights will belong to someone else, it should feel like your own.
Make sure that you thoroughly test features to ensure that all functions are available to you, as an admin. Daily contacts to the provider will only end up in frustration on both sides.
5 – It has to be future proof
Flexibility when it comes to unexpected changes is essential (see Point 3), but we also need to think about expected changes. Where is your organisation likely to be in two years, five years, ten years? Anyone involved in an LMS migration will know how challenging it can be and how essential it is for your chosen LMS to grow with your organisation.
To select the right LMS, you should consider user growth, training resources and admin functionality.
Careful planning during your decision making can save you a lot of hassle down the road!
The Marshall LMS
To find out more about the LMS we use at Marshalls, visit our page here.
To learn more about our LMS or how we can help you in regards to e-learning, contact our friendly team.
