The Six Proven Steps for Successful LMS Implementation (Part 1 of 2)

(Editor’s Note: This is the second of five articles by Steve Foreman on learning management systems.)

What isinvolved in successful LMS implementation? It can be a significant investmentin cost, time, and potential disruption to your organization. To be successful,you need significant planning and attention to detail. There is a provenapproach to successful implementation, which I am going to describe in somedetail.

The process steps

There aresix steps in the approach. I describe the first three in this article, and thelast three in the next article, which will appear in this magazine next week.Whether you are implementing a new LMS or performing a major upgrade to yourcurrent system, allocating the right resources to accomplish each step in theprocess is critical. Organizations that lack appropriate planning and resourcesrisk a string of unwanted surprises, extensive delays, and problems that arelikely to result in unhappy users.

Before you begin the six steps, though,there are two things you must do.

1. Assemble your team
2. Establish your implementation timeframe

Assembleyour team

To get started, you mustassemble your implementation team. You need a core team that is directlyresponsible for LMS implementation tasks and for making decisions. You alsoneed an extended team that you activate at various points during theimplementation when more people are required to handle the workload. Involvingthe extended team also gives participants valuable experience with the LMSbefore you go live. You can get started once you have identified and engagedyour core team members. You can identify the extended team members after thecore team has convened and begun to develop the project plan.

Core team

The size ofthe core team is likely to reflect the size of your organization. In smallerorganizations, two or three people may each wear several hats. Largerorganizations may have a larger core team comprised of five or six people. Butregardless of how many people are assigned, the core team should include fivemain roles.

The teamleader is ultimately responsible for keeping things moving toward asuccessful outcome, working with team members to remove obstacles, plancontingencies, interact with the LMS vendor, and escalate issues whennecessary.

The projectmanager is responsible for keeping track of all the tasks, subtasks,resource assignments, dependencies, and due dates. An LMS implementationproject has many moving parts, and a skilled project manager is critical tosuccess.

An eLearningtechnology specialist is responsible for representing the organization’s eLearningtools, platforms, and instructional models. Migrating eLearning courseware froma legacy system to a new LMS can be complex. The eLearning technologyspecialist will have primary responsibility for managing the coursewaremigration and interoperability testing, along with any native LMS content suchas surveys, assessments, and social media for learning.

A trainingadministrator is responsible for representing the organization’sadministration needs. These include course structures, certification andcompliance, audiences and domains, user profiles and demographics, assignmentsand notifications, the course catalog and metadata, and reports. The trainingadministrator will play a key role in deciding how to configure the LMS toaccomplish the organization’s needs.

AnIT architect is responsible for a range of system issues that may includehosting and installation, if your organization is hosting the LMS on-premise.The IT architect is also responsible for security, user account management andauthentication, data migration from the legacy LMS to the new LMS, systemintegration with an HR system, and perhaps other systems such as security rolemanagement, portals, eCommerce, general ledger, web-conferencing, enterprisesearch, etc.

Extended team

You’ll activate the extendedteam at key points in the project. It is comprised of people who will work withthe LMS frequently after implementation. Consider including eLearning authors and instructional designers who behave asextensions of the core team’s eLearning technology specialist role and training and curriculum managers, administrators, and registrars who act as extensions to the core team’s trainingadministrator role. These team members will be involved in implementationactivities such as administrator training, content cleanup, and user acceptancetesting. The extended team should also include IT production support, databaseadministrators, systems integrators,network managers, and security officers who perform asextensions of the core team’s IT architect role. These resources will beinvolved in systems-related tasks such as login and authentication, datamigration, and systems integrations.

Implementationtimeframe

Assuming that you haveassigned adequate resources, implementation of an LMS that is hosted on-premisecan take anywhere from six to 12 months. Vendor-hosted solutions, oftenreferred to as “cloud” or “software as a service” (SaaS) solutions can takeanywhere from three to nine months. Much of the time involved depends on howclearly you have defined your organization’s requirements, how well-suited yourLMS is to those requirements, and the amount of variability and complexity thatmust be accommodated to support how your organization operates.

How toimplement an LMS

Generally,the LMS implementation process involves six major steps: planning, LMS configuration,systems integration, course and data migration, user acceptance testing, and golive. I will address the first three in this article, and the last three in thenext. In addition, there are a few key activities such as communications andchange management that, while not directly related to LMS implementation, mustbe part of the project if you want the highest likelihood of success.

Figure 1: The six steps to successful LMS implementation

Planning

Planning iscritical, not just at the outset of your project, but throughout. As theproject proceeds, unanticipated needs and challenges will emerge. You will needto continually expand and refine your project plan. A strong project manager isa great asset to your LMS implementation.

Thespecifics of your plan will vary based on the needs of your organization. Agood way to start is to ask your LMS vendor to provide a project-plan template.The vendor plan is likely to include all the tasks needed to implement the LMSfrom the vendor’s point of view. You can start with the vendor’s template andadd the tasks that do not involve the vendor, but which are neverthelessimportant to your organization, such as data cleanup, communications planning,change management planning, user acceptance testing, end user support, etc.

LMSconfiguration

Most projectplans are likely to include tasks related to LMS configuration, and I describethem here. Depending on the specifics of your implementation, you may identifyadditional tasks to include in your plan.

LMS vendorsare in the business of selling their product to as many organizations aspossible. An LMS vendor will train you on how their product works and thenexpect you to make system configuration decisions based on your knowledge ofyour organization and what you have learned about the LMS.

Thechallenge is that the vendor will ask you to make far-reaching configurationdecisions, some of which may be difficult or impractical to change later on,without the benefit of hindsight and while you are still brand new to thesystem. While most vendors will do their best to advise you on your options, avendor cannot reasonably learn the ins and outs of each of their customer’sorganizations in order to provide the necessary customer advocacy, consulting,and guidance. Your vendor’s expertise with their product, and your core team’sexpert knowledge of your organization’s needs, must meet somewhere in themiddle to produce the best possible outcome.

The configuration decisionsyou will need to make involve (a) an understanding of your data and operations,and (b) an understanding of the system’s data fields, functionality, andcapabilities.

Userprofiles

You willneed to decide what user demographic data you will need, where it is currentlystored and managed, and where to put it in the LMS. For a corporate LMS,demographic data may include the user’s name and contact information, jobfunction and organization, manager, employment status (e.g., part time, fulltime), time in current job, time in current organization, hire date, etc. Foran academic LMS, demographic data may include the user’s name and contactinformation, grade level or year, degree program, major, transfer credits, etc.For an explanation of the various types of LMSs (e.g., academic, corporate, andintegrated LMS/LCMS), see the LearningSolutions article Five Steps to Evaluate and Select an LMS: Proven Practices.

It is important to consider thedata needed for your LMS reports, and the data needed to segment your users inorder to assign training. User demographics can also be used to personalizeyour system as explained in the next section.

Domains andaudiences

Some LMSproducts allow you to configure multiple domains. This approach is particularlyuseful when you need to train employees and customers. You can place theemployee user accounts, internal courses, and administrators in one domain andplace the customers, external courses, and another set of administrators in adifferent domain. The result is like having two LMS installations for the priceof one.

Within adomain, many LMS systems enable you to configure audiences based on userprofile information. For example, you may define an audience that consist ofpeople in the northeast region who work in sales, or people whose hire date waswithin the last three months. Audiences enable you to assign training to groupsof users in a way that is self-organizing. If you assign training to a list ofnamed users you must update the list whenever someone changes jobs or leavesthe company. But when you configure an audience based on profile information,anyone who fits the profile is automatically included in the audience.

Many LMS products also enableyou to restrict a course’s visibility to people within an audience. Forexample, someone in sales may see a different set of course offerings thansomeone in IT, finance, or manufacturing.

Administratorsecurity roles

A securityrole is a set of permissions assigned to each type of LMS administrator. Forexample, your implementation may require one set of people who can run reports,another set of people who can create and schedule courses, and another set ofpeople who can register users. To accomplish this, you will establish threesecurity roles, configure the appropriate permissions for each role, and assignusers to the roles.

Some LMS products enable asingle user to have multiple roles. Other systems allow only one role per user.If your LMS supports multiple domains, you may be able to assign a userdifferent roles in each domain.

Coursecatalog and metadata

An LMS course catalog istypically a menu-driven method for users to browse the courses offered in thesystem. You will need to design your catalog menu structure, and later,associate courses with catalog nodes. Course metadata is a set of properties ortags that describe your courses. For example, one property may be the deliverymode. The values for this property may include web-based training (self-paced,live webinar, recorded webinar, classroom, etc.). Another property may be thelanguage in which you offer the course. These metadata properties can be veryuseful to end users when they are searching and selecting course offerings fromsearch results.

Course andcurriculum structures

A course mayinclude multiple learning activities such as a reading assignment, a pretest, aself-paced module, attendance in a classroom or webinar session, a master test,and a survey. Learners may need to take these activities in sequence. Some maybe mandatory, others optional. Each combination of learning activities forms acourse structure.

A curriculummay include a number of courses that may or may not need to be in sequence. Again,some may be mandatory and others optional. The criteria for earning completioncredit may vary from curriculum to curriculum.

You cannot fully configure thesestructures until you have completed migration of your course data from yourlegacy system to the new LMS. However, you can experiment with some placeholdercourses to establish models and templates for the types of course andcurriculum structures you expect to use. This approach enables to you see howthe LMS behaves so that you can adjust the course or curriculum structuresuntil they are working the way you need. Then, you can replicate the structureswith actual content after you have finished migrating your data.

Evaluations and assessments

Many LMSproducts have built in evaluation (survey) and assessment (test) tools. Theadvantage to using a native LMS tool is that you can easily view reports at thequestion level, which enables you to perform item analysis and determine thevalidity of your survey or test. The disadvantage is that, if you switch LMSproducts, you may need to redevelop all the assessment data. This is especiallythe case for corporate LMS products. Academic LMS products that support the IMSQTI standard provide methods to transfer tests and test results from one systemto another.

If you are using a third partytesting or surveying tool, you will need to determine how the toolinteroperates with the LMS. You may be able to use the ADL SCORM standard, orsimply serve up the test or survey in the third-party system after launching itfrom the LMS. Check with your tool vendor and LMS vendor to discuss options.

Competencies

Someorganizations are interested in implementing a competency model in the LMS. Typically,an LMS will allow you to create a list of competencies and a proficiency scaleapplicable to any competency. For example, a user may have novice proficiencyat one competency and expert proficiency at another. Competencies are thenassociated with jobs, people, assessments, and courses. If you have a certainjob, you need a certain set of competencies, each at a specific level ofproficiency. If you do not have adequate proficiency at all the necessarycompetencies, you can find courses to help you develop your skills andknowledge. You may demonstrate competency by passing a test, throughobservation by your manager, or by completing a self-survey.

To configure competencies,you will need to enter the competencies and proficiency scale, and thenassociate competencies with jobs, assessments, and courses.

Notifications

Most LMSproducts provide an out-of-the-box set of notifications. Some allow clients tocreate custom notifications. There are essentially three types ofnotifications: alerts, reminders, and confirmations. An alert may notify usersof a cancelled course or a change to a date or location. A reminder may notifyusers of a class that is about to begin or an assignment that is past due. Aconfirmation may notify users that they have enrolled in a course, completed acourse, or passed a test.

To configurenotifications, you need to decide which notifications to activate and deactivate.It is a good idea to turn off all notifications that are not essential in orderto avoid “spamming” users. You may also need to customize your notificationemail message recipients, subjects, body, and/or signature. Many LMS systemsprovide you with a set of variables that can insert system-generated text suchas the course title, dates, and location.

A note of caution: be sure todisable the LMS email-send capability or temporarily remove the email addressesof your users before you go live. You don’t want to be sending unintended emailnotifications to users while you are migrating data, configuring the system, orperforming user-acceptance testing.

Reports

Most LMSproducts provide a set of out-of-the-box reports. Many include reporting toolsthat enable you to configure your own custom reports. Some even provideadvanced capabilities for creating graphical reports, dashboards, pivot tables,and more. Early in the implementation process you need to define your reportrequirements. List all the reports that you need, for whom, how often, for whatpurpose, with what set of data, and in what format. Since you need to be sureyou can get these reports out of the system, your report requirements willguide many of your LMS configuration and data migration decisions.

Some LMSproducts enable you to generate a report that contains all the right data, butis limited in terms of its formatting capabilities. If needed, check to seewhether the LMS can export its reports to Excel so that you can format themthere.

Some LMS products enable youto schedule a process that automatically runs a report and emails a link to thereport to a recipient list. Some even allow you to send the report as an Excelor PDF attachment in the email message.

Systemsintegration

An LMS mayintegrate with a number of systems. I describe some of the most common systemintegrations below.

Systems containing user accounts andprofiles

One of themost common LMS systems integrations is with a system containing user accountsand profile information. Some academic organizations have a student informationsystem (SIS), which contains student information. Some professionalassociations have a member management system (MMS), which contains memberinformation. Many businesses have a human resources management system (HRMS),which contains employee information.

Some businesses use their LMS for training the“extended enterprise,” which may include some combination of customers,suppliers, dealers, agents, and distributers. These organizations may use a listdirectory access protocol (LDAP) solution or something similar to keep track oftheir extended enterprise users. If your organization has one of these systems,you will probably want to develop a systems interface to synchronize useraccounts with the LMS.

Most LMS products provide mechanisms to importrecurring data feeds from these systems. Your IT group will need to develop aprogram to extract the data from the user account system and format itaccording to your LMS vendor’s specifications so that you can import it intothe LMS. You can schedule the entire process to run automatically on a nightlybasis. Your IT group may refer to this as a nightly feed or ETL (extract-transfer-load)process.

If yourorganization does not have a system containing user accounts, you will probablyneed to configure the LMS to create and manage user accounts. If you have alimited number of users, then you may want to implement an account create-or-changerequest process outside of the LMS and restrict LMS account creation andmanagement to administrators. This will ensure that only authorized users canaccess the LMS and decrease the risk of user-generated errors.

If you have too many users to manage accountsadministratively, then you may need to enable self-service user-accountcreation. However, with this approach you are more likely to end up withduplicate accounts, incomplete user profiles, and other suspect user data. Oneapproach to remedy this is to find an LMS that requires that users enter aunique email address when creating a new account; the LMS then emails the userand waits for a response before validating the account. Many public sites whereusers can create their own accounts use this approach. You may also want tomake some mandatory user profiles to ensure that you have a complete profilefor each user.

Whatever approach you take tomanaging user accounts, be sure to check your license agreement with the LMSvendor to ensure that you are licensed for the number of active users who haveaccounts in your system.

Single sign-on(SSO)

Anotherfrequent LMS integration is with a single-sign-on solution. In order to avoidrequiring end users to log in to different systems with different logins, someorganizations have implemented single sign-on (SSO). This enables a user to login to the network once, and gain access to multiple systems through a silentauthentication process that accepts credentials from the SSO solution andcircumvents the login page of those systems.

Many LMSsystems support a variety of SSO methods. It is a good idea to put your ITdepartment in touch with your LMS vendor to determine how to best implement SSOin your organization.

Portal

Many LMS products offer twomethods of integration with a portal. One method, called “deep linking” enablesyou to capture the web address of a specific course in your LMS and paste itinto a portal page. When users click on the deep link, it takes them directlyto the course page in the LMS. Another method, called an API (applicationprogramming interface) allows your IT department to access the data andfunctionality of your LMS programmatically. An API enables your IT group topull data from your LMS dynamically and post it in the portal. A portal/LMSintegration may involve one or both of these two methods.

Enterprisesearch

Though ithas been rare in the past, an increasing number of organizations areintegrating their LMS with an enterprise search platform. There are severalbenefits to this approach.

First, auser can enter a single search string and get a mixture of training from theLMS along with information and documents from a document management, knowledgemanagement, or content management system. This approach is superior tosearching one place for information and another place for training.

Second, theuser can take advantage of the superior search experience to which they havebecome accustomed with tools like Google, Bing, and Yahoo. Like those tools,enterprise search platforms offer more advanced search methods such asproximity ranking (most to least relevant), controlled vocabulary (synonyms andacronyms), all forms of a word, and spelling correction (“Did you mean…”).

The challenge is to configurethe search platform to “crawl” the LMS database and index its course titles,descriptions, and metadata in a way that makes it searchable. This can involveconsiderable programming time and effort by your IT department and the resultsare somewhat dependent on the quality of the LMS data.

eCommerce

Organizationsthat charge for training may be interested in integrating their LMS with acredit-card-processing service. Some LMS products support eCommerce and can beconfigured to work with a variety of industry-leading service providers.

Conclusion

Havingcompleted these first three steps, you will be ready to continue on to carryout the next three and complete the installation: course and datamigration, user acceptance testing, and go live. I will address these steps inthe next article.