A well-thought-out sophisticated LMS is a lot more than just another system that is used by your company. In its essence, it is the very backbone of eLearning and it is vital that people and marketers alike understand and treat it as such. If you haven’t been living under a rock for the past few years, surely you would have heard of its importance. Even today, there are a lot of people still wondering why an LMS makes so much of a difference in the long run. Let us illustrate as to why this is the case.
Once you choose an LMS, the factors that you need to take into consideration are the LMS becoming a part of the L&D and HR systems as well as the software ecosystem of the company. If you end up choosing the wrong LMS, it will end up being a heavy loss for you since most of your efforts, funds and time would have gone to waste only to find that the set goals are incompatible with the product.
A good authoring tool software can help quite a bit in this regard, but the real trick here is knowing exactly which pitfalls to avoid while choosing the LMS. Most people know what to do, but seldom know what to avoid so why not take the road that sets you apart from the rest? It won’t cost you anything and you’ll stand out from your peers in the best way. Here are the top three pitfalls:-
- Getting an outdated LMS that only works for today: Here’s the thing – Every business out there has a growth rate and your LMs should certainly be able to keep up. Being stuck with an outdated LMS in the next five years that neither offers the same value that it used to or the competitive edge is no fun at all.
Some of the features that your LMS should have or plan to have are new gamification, AR and VR support as well as personalized learning paths. A lot of eLearning solutions are dynamically updated and custom features can either be provided by a team or a trusted freelancer/contractor. - Not paying attention to analytics: You certainly cannot afford to look over the importance of this particular aspect as this is the only way of knowing the efficiency of the corporate training process as well as testing out various methodologies. This is primarily done to maximize business impact and eLearning outcomes.
Only once the analytical features have been configured can they present themselves in a variety of formats such as graphs, diagrams and tables. You will be able to measure the entire process fruitfully through the proper reporting tools and customizable analytics. - Forgetting to test the functionality: There are too many examples out there of people who have acted in haste only to find that the LMS is not suited for them. If the learning curve is too steep for your employees to catch up, you already know that something is wrong. Only by getting a proper first-hand experience is vital for the evaluation of every LMS feature.
Activities like free trials, live demos and consultations exist for the sole reason of helping potential customers made a proper decision by exploring the features of the product. Hence, make sure that all your employees use the system and then subsequently, ask as many questions as possible so that all their doubts are cleared up at that stage itself.
Always remember this – if a learner is unimpressed by your portal, you can be sure that he is never coming back. Don’t get too carried away by the fact that eLearning is taking the market world by storm and think that there are little to no challenges that need to be faced. In actuality, nothing could be further from the truth.
When it comes down to design and development, even the smallest snags can undo all your hard work in an instant. Hence, it is vital for you to stay confident and not get distracted by small snags and the slow passing of time with regard to the necessary changes. All the best things in the world take their own time, but every bit of effort is more than worth it in the end. There is no reason why things should be any different in your case, so chin up and toil up!
