Do you really need an Enterprise LMS? Maybe not…

[Jodi Harrison]

This title of a webinar hosted by CLO Magazine caught my attention and I thought I would throw it out to you for your opinions. I think both directions have great value, just different drivers and potential benefits. So, do you really need an Enterprise LMS?

How do you know what LMS is best for your organization?

They tossed out some startling statistics large corporations (10K employees and up) have 5 or more LMS in many cases. So there must be some value to having departmental/divisional LMS, yes? Or is this the case that they are so large the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing?

Could we be moving toward more user-centric learning portals offering more than a course library? What do you think?

[Jay Cross]

I chuckled when CLO handed out awards for "Best LMS" at their Symposium last week.

Most LMS functions are a legacy of industrial-age command and control. They track compliance, not innovation. A butts-in-seats counter makes no sense in Enterprise 2.0.

The best LMS for most folks is something simple, cheap, and probably open source.

[Harold Jarche]

Since learning cannot be managed, call it what it is and figure out what you need:

compliance tracking
bums in seats numbers
who's taken what course
professional development wish list
facility use records
instructor time tracking
etc ...

[Saurav Jaiswal]

I agree Jodi. It's interesting you bring this up. A very important client of mine does use a "Nasdaq Listed" Company's LMS product, pays an exorbitant price for the licensing and support BUT they also sulk! Their senior management have been working with that product for many years and feel "secure" despite the fact that my contact absolutely detests their services.

My company makes custom Learning Management Solutions and e-learning courseware and I have personally seen that large LMS companies, as Jay rightly says ' track compliance, not innovation'. People are turning to my custom solutions because they get what they want at a good price with good service and more importantly with innovative solutions.

I think clients and vendors both need to be cognizant of the changing technology spectrum and move with the times.

[Shankar Krishna]

Jodi

Most clients do not know what LMS is best for their individual organisation. Hence most embark on a fishing expedition to
evaluate vendors and invariably the big providers offer the convenience of the `brand name' - there used to be a saying - `You can't go wrong with an IBM'.

I know a couple of my clients running 2 LMS-es - tracking or a dashboard is not done - since the backend database is not integrated.

I think a course library is still the better way to go - more for tracking purpose and vision and goal-setting etc.

[Giles Smith]

I'm yet to find a company who are completely satisfied with their LMS yet £thousands have been spend on implementing and populating the solution whilst very little was ever done in assessing what was needed. They seem a very expensive way to track the training conducted through the correct channels in business and for getting fancy reports.

Half the time clients tell me they got the LMS as part of a wider systems implementation (Oracle is a great example), bespoke, well considered and targetted solutions which cost 1/5 of the price would be my recommendation if it was a must have

[David Glow]

I get asked this question so many times on ASTD message boards, since I've been through several large implementations.

99% of the time, the purchasing organization doesn't have a clear idea of what they truly need and end up getting dazzled by features or an impressive client list from vendors. All implementations I have seen are "overpurchased"- companies only use a fraction of the functionality from the tool, which are replicated in much more affordable alternatives.

In many organizations, "rollup" and central control seem important, which is why one "master system" is commonly mandated, despite being a very poor fit with many levels in the organization. If departments were empowered to use what is truly "best" at their level, and reporting/data standards are clear (which are generally very easy to fulfull- "check in the box" for major compliance initiatives), there should be ways to empower groups to move toward more localized, customer-centric portals while fulfilling the needs at the top of the organization.

And for all the money, time, and resource I've seen go into all these implementations, I can echo Jay's sentiment that the best LMS for most folks is probably simple, cheap, and open source (In my experience, user communities are much more responsive in responding to issues than vendors who enact strict SLA agreements- the "we're in this together" goes a long way in creating a supportive teams of users).

And, yes, they track completion of activities, not learning or innovation.

[Jean-Marc Guillemette]

As an association, an important part of our mandate is to facilitate the professional development of our members. We're therefore looking to build a virtual 'place' where members can go, find helpful resources (ranging from documents, links to sites, to learning modules), connect with peers, build learning portfolios, etc. Our analysis of how best to do this points us in the direction of getting an LMS that will become the platform on which to build this learning space. If not an LMS, then what?

[Harold Jarche]

Try something like Elgg, which supports communities and it's open source. Jane Hart has installed it many times and I've used it on several projects where the client originally specified an LMS.

[Larry Gourley]

I recently went through an exercise of contacting 10 LMS vendors on behalf of Life Sciences clients to determine if each vendor solution met strict FDA standards for compliance training, reporting, audit trails, electronic signatures, security, change control, validation, etc . . .

In each case, the LMS request was driven by departments that manage compliance & risk, typically Quality Systems and/or Manufacturing. In each case, the client had multiple point solutions in place and needed to consolidate LMS platforms to reduce cost & reduce the strain on IT. Each client also planned to link the LMS to a global HR database to enable usage by other departments.

I wish the LMS requirements were driven by innovation, the need for community building & collaboration, and user-centric learning but the reality is that compliance drives the process in many industries. Open-source products that enable community building are sometimes viewed as "risky".

In response to Jean-Marc and David, we do need a new direction. Can open source products meet traditional compliance & tracking needs while also enabling innovation & community building? I look forward to learning more on this issue.

[Neil Burgess]

After reviewing several LMS systems, we settled on an Open Source (aka free) version. It is far from perfect, but I've not seen features in commercial versions that made me fall off my seat. Content packages can be exported should we choose to upgrade some day. LMS in my opinion have a long way to go - I'd like to see Apple or Google develop an LMS. N