The LMS “Manages Learners,” But Business Needs More

Do peopleonly ever complain about their learning management system (LMS)? It seems thatthe excitement and anticipation before the LMS arrives is fanfared with boldexclamations of its all-encompassing functionality: “It does everything! Thereis so much content! And it even integrates learning, talent, and performancemetrics!” But the technology lands and reality dawns. The fanfares dull to: “Noone’s using it, and now it’s become a millstone around my neck.”

Why does thishappen?

I’veidentified four key reasons. Should we tackle them, we would end up looking atour function, impact, actions, and technology requirements very differently.

The LMS endgame is no one else’s endgame

The LMSmanages and reports on learning, while employees want to perform better todayand improve their prospects for tomorrow. And then there is the small matter ofwhat the organization and its leaders want: business results. So, you can seethat the endgame of the LMS ends too soon!

Perhaps evenidentifying ourselves as learning professionals is limiting our impact onbusiness, because learning has been just one vehicle for enhancing performanceand building capability. Constant connectivity and answers on-demand areshowing us all an alternative—and, at the moment, Google influences everydaybusiness performance more than L&D.

The LMS helpsus to record and report on the attendanceand completion of a course, assessment scores, and learner satisfaction. But what for? One of theheadline measures of L&D has always been individual and aggregated timespent on “learning” when all it actually indicates is “exposure to (x).”

If we lookpast learning and refocus on performanceand capability, we help people to dothe actual jobs they are doing and the jobs they want to be doing, and weensure that the organization is capable of delivering real results.

Prioritizing content over context

Access tohundreds of generic online courses is unlikely to help workers with the workthey are doing today and efficiently improve their prospects within thecompany. I know, because I’ve piled LMSs full to the brim with eLearningcourses before—and gained very little traction! However, when we focus on thework that must be done, the jobs that workers are actually doing, and the jobsthey want to be doing, we have to look past content and see the context inwhich they operate. After all, this is also the context in which some peopleare already successfully achieving.

Google, Apple,and other companies show us all, every day, how intuitive technology canenhance our performance as functioning human beings—whether it’s by managingour diaries, staying in touch with friends and family, providing the fastestroute to where we’re going, or delivering news and information that isimportant to us, on demand! At its best, technology helps each of us to do whatwe want to do, better. If your LMS is not enhancing the performance of youremployees, helping them to be better today, then it is failing.

Alternatively,technology exists today that can help yourapidly create resources that capture and share knowledge, know-how, expertise,and insights across an entire organization (or designated population) inminutes, plugging real performance gaps in real time.

Over-reliance on the course

The defaultsolution for L&D, for as long as there has been L&D, has always beenthe course; the opportunity to take workers away from their work to explore andexperiment with a given topic over a day, two days, three days, or longer. Whilegood courses will offer value, workers support their everyday performance withweb searches, looking outside of their organization for tools, insights, andknow-how to apply to their work. This appetite for on-demand support, insight,and inspiration can now easily be satisfied by L&D, with the addedinclusion of context: how they can successfullydo things within their organization.

Digitalresources act like internal web-search results and are all about performanceand capability, helping people in their moment of need to employ context-specificknowledge and know-how to their pressing challenges—while also providinginspiration, insight, and expertise to navigate future challenges. By capitalizingon the habits, preferences, and motivations of workers today, you could seemuch greater engagement than you would with eLearning—at a fraction of theprice, too!

You can builddigital resources in just a few minutes and iterate them over time to increase theirvalue, again and again. So, their value comes in understanding what employeeswant to do better, providing resources to equip them (or help them remove theirbarriers), and improving those resources based on actual user feedback. As youspeak with workers, you understand their actual work challenges and provideresources that are more appropriate than courses.

I’m seeingorganizations dump their big, heavy LMSs in favor of much lighter technologytools that engage employees and deliver results.

Lack of technological know-how

With a focuson managing and measuring learning (not performance and business results) andgeneric content (in the form of expensive eLearning), LMS providers areprofiting from limited expectations of what learning technology can actuallydo.

I am findingthat the vast majority of my L&D colleagues know very little about thepossibilities of technology to aid individual and organizational performance,and this is a significant factor in letting LMS providers sell platforms thatdeliver insufficient results.

You will nothave to learn to code; just begin by focusing on what actually needs to beachieved in your organization and how L&D can demonstrably affect this.

Ask yourself:What if we were designing our learningtechnology from scratch? Surely you would look at what is already working(web search and apps), leverage that, and support everyday working whilefinding ways of making contextually relevant tools, insights, expertise, andknow-how instantly accessible for workers when they need it.

In summary,if your LMS helps you to report on learning activity but doesn’t actuallyimpact performance and build capability that delivers business results, it isletting you down.

Begin todayby rising up from the limitations of learning. Refocus on the jobs that workersare actually doing, and help them to do the jobs they want to be doing, better.Make digital resources rather than courses your default, and put the content yourworkers need to do their jobs into your technology systems so that you caninfluence everyday performance.

Rather thanlearning, your new measures should be:

• Helpfulness—your technology is helping peopleto do their jobs today and the jobs they want to do tomorrow
• Engagement—your workers return to yourtechnology (and participate) again and again
• Efficacy—you measure the achievement ofdesired performance and business goals

It all goes backto what we (L&D) are trying to achieve. Are we managing learning orenhancing performance and building capability?