In the first part of this blog series, I had written about the LMS requirements checklist. In this part of the blog series, I will discuss LMS implementation checklist.
The right learning management system (LMS) will help your organization to streamline employee learning and development (EL&D) creating, delivering, managing, and tracking several training programs. You can choose the right LMS to enable learners to acquire knowledge and skills at their own pace. Also, you can keep the learners engaged and motivated by implementing microlearning and gamification options.
But you cannot make optimize and customize the EL&D process simply by choosing the right LMS system. In addition to choosing the right LMS, you must focus on implementing the software application successfully. You can streamline and accelerate LMS implementation by preparing a comprehensive checklist.
The LMS implementation checklist will reduce the chances of failure by making you remember and remind the things to be checked, verified, or inspected. Also, it will help you to define the things to be done before and after implementing the LMS. However, you can make the LMS implementation checklist work only by including a number of important items.
13 Items You Must Not Forget to Include in an LMS Implementation Checklist
Learning Goals
You can easily streamline EL&D by implementing the right LMS. But you cannot implement the LMS successfully without defining the learning objectives clearly and specifically. You can use the same LMS to accomplish a variety of learning goals – train a diverse workforce, simplify employee onboarding, deliver compliance training, and facilitate employee reskilling and upskilling. The LMS platform should provide the flexibility of customization and implementation, according to your organization’s specific learning goals. However, you can make the implementation more effective by defining both long-term and short-term learning goals unambiguously.
Implementation Team
You must remember that the multiple learners, instructors, and administrators across geographies will access the same LMS platform. You cannot implement an LMS optimally without dividing the users into multiple teams. Also, the LMS must be implemented by a team consisting of a project manager, team leader, eLearning specialist, and system administrator. Each member of the team will take care of a specific aspect of LMS implementation. For instance, the system administrator will focus on the features and configuration, while the project manager will manage the implementation time and budget.
Learning Modes
While implementing an LMS, you have the option to choose from many learning modes. You can opt for either self-paced learning, instructor-led learning, or blended learning. You must remember that instructor-led training and self-paced learning have their own pros and cons. Your organization can boost EL&D only by bridging the gap between the two learning modes by implementing blended learning. While implementing blended learning, you must focus on allowing students to access eLearning content anytime and anywhere, while getting opportunities to learn from and interact with instructors using various communication options.
Roll out Approach
You can roll out an LMS in a number of ways according to the availability of time and resources. Many organizations these days implement in phases to overcome constraints related to time and resources. Also, some organizations opt for a soft launch to ensure that all problems and issues are resolved before the complete rollout of the software solution. The LMS implementation checklist must clearly convey the timeline and expectations to all stakeholders in the project. Also, it must allocate adequate time to end-users to learn how to use the LMS seamlessly and optimally.
LMS Requirements
You can use the right LMS to train, reskill, and upskill a large and diverse workforce. But you can streamline EL&D only by choosing an LMS that comes with built-in features that meet your organization’s precise employee training needs and objectives. You must focus on some of the important features of the LMS to ensure that the software application enables you to design, deliver, and manage a variety of training programs without putting in extra time and effort. At the same time, the LMS must come with built-in analytics to make it easier for you to calculate and track various metrics. Here is a handy LMS requirements checklist, which can be helpful.
Portal Structure
While customizing and implementing an LMS, you must explore ways to convert it into a learning portal that complements your corporate style. You can customize the look and feel of certain learning management systems (LMS systems) completely by changing their design, altering the default color scheme, or uploading your company logo. The LMS implementation checklist must clearly define how to make the LMS complement your corporate website. Also, you need to mention if the LMS needs to be customized according to the specific role of the end-users like learners, instructors, and administrators.
Creating and Organizing Elearning Content
While preparing an LMS implementation checklist, you must explore ways to making high-quality content available to learners. The content authoring tools provided by the LMSs help you to create eLearning content by integrating a variety of digital content – ebooks, audio, video, images, infographics, and quizzes. Also, you can make the learners access a wider range of eLearning content by integrating the LMS with ready-to-use digital libraries. In addition to preparing high-quality digital content, the checklist must emphasize testing the eLearning content using various devices, operating systems, and browsers.
Reports and Analytics
Most LMSs these days come with built-in reporting and data analytics reports. The administrators can track learners’ activities and evaluate training programs by generating a variety of reports based on learner data. At the same time, the analytics help administrators to identify the areas of improvement. But your LMS implementation checklist must clearly define the information to be contained in every report and the way the information needs to be presented. Also, it must clearly define the analytics to be used to get actionable insights by analyzing the real-time learning data.
Data Migration
Your LMS implementation checklist need not include data migration if you are not switching an LMS. But you must focus on data migration extensively while switching to a new or cloud-based LMS. You can implement the LMS successfully only by migrating the existing courses, data, and other eLearning assets to the new software system efficiently and safely. There are also chances that the data may require modifications or adjustments to work seamlessly with the new LMS. You must perform elaborate testing to ensure that no data are lost during the migration or transition.
Metrics and KPIs
Your organization cannot achieve the predefined objectives without measuring the performance of various training programs regularly. You need to use a slew of metrics or key performance indicators (KPIs) to assess and improve the performance of individual learning programs. You can easily choose and combine the right metrics based on existing eLearning data. But you have to refer to the predefined goals and requirements while defining the metrics when no previous data. It is also important that all the stakeholders should review the metrics.
Pre-Launch Testing
You can customize the cloud-based LMS platforms seamlessly according to your organization’s EL&D plan. But you need to ensure that LMS meets the pre-defined eLearning goals fully by getting the evaluation by learners, instructors, and administrators. Before implementing or launching an LMS, you must form a team to test the software application elaborately. Also, you need to ensure that the testing team consists of administrators, instructors, and learners. The test results will help you to customize and finetune the LMS before implementation by identifying and resolving all issues.
User Feedback Collection
While implementing an LMS, you must remember that EL&D improvement is an ongoing process. You cannot make EL&D programs successful without keeping learners engaged and motivated. Also, you must make it easier for learners to acquire knowledge and skill after working hours. That is why; you must understand what works and what does not work by collecting real-time feedback from learners. Also, you can use various metrics to assess the user-friendliness of the LMS and the effectiveness of training programs.
EL&D Trends
The employee learning and development trends change from time to time. You cannot implement an LMS successfully without focusing on adopting some of the hottest eLearning trends like mobile learning, social learning, adaptive learning, and gamification. You can easily adopt the EL&D trends by choosing the right LMS. But it is also important to focus on implementing the trends while customizing and implementing the LMS. Also, you must keep in mind the EL&D while conducting pre-launch testing of the LMS.
In addition to choosing the right LMS, you must focus on customizing and implementing the software application. A comprehensive LMS implementation checklist will make it easier for you to access the required information and complete the essential tasks. But you can reduce chances of failure by leveraging the LMS implementation checklist only when it includes all important points.
