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Switching LMS? Top Considerations for Making the Move Smooth
Learning management systems (LMS) have exploded in popularity the past few years, and for good reason. With ever-evolving LMS capabilities and features that support training delivery to multiple use cases, having a good LMS is no longer “nice-to-have” for growth-minded organizations.
Your LMS should be the central hub of your org’s training and education programs, and allows you to build, publish, and gather data around your training efforts. With so many options to choose from, as well as so much importance riding on the right LMS, it’s crucial for L&D teams to continually evaluate the market to ensure they are using the right platform for their needs.
This blog post will guide you through some of the factors you should consider when switching LMS providers, and how you can make sure that your business benefits from the switch.
Factors to consider when switching LMS
- Is the user experience of your current LMS standing in the way of achieving your goals? Is the system easy to use, simple to understand, and reliable, with an average uptime of 99.99%?
- Does your current LMS offer a combination of engagement options that can support the six types of blended learning models, microlearning, or other strategies that you might want to include in your training programs?
- Does your current provider act as a partner in helping you achieve real results for your business? Are they responsive to your needs and quick to answer questions??
Benefits of switching LMS
Expectedly, many of the benefits of switching LMS platforms align with the considerations in the paragraph above. Some of the benefits you should expect with switching include:
Consolidate your learning solutions
If you have multiple systems in place for training employees, or multiple solutions for training employees, partners and customers, you should be looking for a multi-tenant LMS. Solutions that enable you to train multiple audiences within one, centralized solution enables you to consolidate and share the cost of one solution across your organization. As well as cost savings, this ensures that you have a solution that can scale to meet the business’s needs.
Better user experience and engagement
Our relationship with our devices is constantly evolving, and these changes affect what users expect from an LMS. Engagement features that felt ahead of the curve five years ago are now table stakes, and it’s important for learners to feel like they’re using a system that’s familiar to them and meets their expectations.
Better return on investment (ROI)
Seasoned L&D teams understand the importance of being data-driven. Customizable, robust reporting is essential not only to understand the impact of your training efforts, but also to increase buy-in among leadership and make sure that your organization is adequately investing to achieve training objectives.
Finding a vendor that will partner with you in your training efforts
A good vendor isn’t just there to sell you a platform and then reappear when it’s time to renew. The best LMS vendors act as invested partners, and see your success as their own. They are available to address questions or concerns, and able to offer proven recommendations for making the most of their platform.
Three common obstacles to switching LMS platforms
Budget
Perhaps you haven’t shopped around for a couple of years, and you aren’t sure how much to budget for an LMS. Or maybe you are grandfathered into a great price with your existing LMS provider, making it difficult to accept the thought of paying more. It’s important to consider, however, the ROI of an effective training program. Even if it looks like it’s going to cost more to invest in a new solution, does that cost bring additional benefits with it, like 24/7 support, strategic program planning and more.
Resistance to change from employees and leadership
This is a common obstacle, because change can be hard. Whether the resistance is primarily financial, or a reflection of status quo bias, overcoming this resistance requires properly communicating all the effort that your team has put into the decision. Not only should you methodically weigh the top considerations of choosing the right LMS, but you also need to communicate these considerations to anyone that might push back on change.
Data migration challenges
An LMS isn’t just a way to deliver training, it’s a repository of valuable data. This includes actual learning data, but also integrations, features, customizations, and more. Starting over from scratch could mean months of sacrificed productivity, an inability to accurately report on future training efforts, and other discouraging trade-offs. These data migration challenges are an important consideration when choosing your new LMS; the question isn’t if you can migrate all your organization’s valuable data, but will your new vendor take a hands-on approach through the migration process.
Preparing for a smooth transition to a new LMS
After your team has worked hard to weigh the decision of selecting the right LMS, and overcoming the obstacles above, there are a few additional things you can do to increase the likelihood of a smooth transition.
Efficiently managing the migration
Between waiting for contracts, data migrations, and more, switching LMS platforms can feel like a lengthy process. Your LMS vendor should be there to guide you through the migration, implementation and beyond.. We recommend making a schedule with the help of your chosen LMS vendor, and sharing it with your team and leadership, that will let them know when you expect certain milestones to be accomplished.
Create a thorough migration checklist
This complements the suggestion above of creating a schedule, but takes into account all of the tasks, big and small, that are required in order to successfully switch LMS vendors. This checklist should include tasks like evaluating and updating user roles, establishing new KPIs, deciding which integrations are essential and which aren’t, and so on. Ask your vendor if they have a migration plan or an implementation timeline they can share with you to get you started.
Lean on your LMS vendor
If there’s one theme throughout this post, it’s the importance of selecting the right LMS provider. Make sure to ask; Does your chosen vendor offer support through implementation and migration? Will you have a designated point of contact throughout the process? If they embrace their role as your team’s partner, then the likelihood of a smooth transition increases considerably. After all, they have helped hundreds or even thousands of companies in switching LMS providers.
Don’t let fear keep you from switching LMS platforms
While this post includes several considerations and suggestions to those interested in switching LMS providers, it’s important to reflect on the value that learning and development brings to an organization in the first place. And while L&D team members understand this intuitively, delivering upon that value requires an LMS platform that aligns with your organization’s needs.
But fear not. With adequate research, good communication, the right expectations, and an LMS partner, you’ll be up and running with your new LMS in no time. Chat with our team today to find out how easy it is to make the move.
