Many eLearning professionals are attempting to use gamification and serious games to spark employee engagement and drive learning retention; it seems everyone is working to make the best serious game that will enhance learning objectives and retention. The biggest setbacks for some have been little-to-no planning, tough-to-pinpoint metrics, little-to-no implementation strategy, and insufficient or nonexistent post-deployment support.

A complete software system overhaul is a challenge for any organization. The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory completely re-engineered its 17-year-old system from the ground up, requiring training on the new systems and related processes for each of its employees. Creating a learning program, which includes 189 different processes for 4,300 employees across 21 role groups with a core team of two in less than eight months, makes for overwhelming odds against success.

While there are webinars that talk about what you should consider before becoming a freelance consultant, there remains the challenge of what to do once you make the choice to become a freelancer. In other words, what do you need to put in place to protect yourself and your new business, and how do you thrive in a competitive landscape?

As learning solutions reach increasingly diverse audiences, it is not only appropriate to ensure that courses are accessible, but it’s also the law. Remaining in compliance helps you and/or your organization avoid costly legal issues. Avoid being forced to return to old content to fix current and potential issues. Start with the end in mind, and learn to build online courses and presentations right from the start.

Clients come to eLearning developers with many questions and preconceived ideas about generally what's possible and specifically what's feasible. Maybe all they've ever seen are poorly developed read-and-click courses or maybe they want rapid eLearning, but don't know exactly what that means. As a developer, you know there are many factors to consider including focus, timeline, design, scope, and content development. How can you and your client have an informed, common understanding when you have your initial discussion?

Many L&D professionals look inward toward their own field for professional development. While this approach certainly has its merits, it also has its downsides, such as: the likelihood of groupthink, reduced exposure to other disciplines, and minimized opportunities for thinking and acting differently. None of the downsides are sound ingredients for ensuring that you, as a professional, are as well-informed as you should be.

OER (open education resources) have gained ground in quality and access over the last decade. How did this movement start? Where is it going? How can OER benefit your learning programs? Answers to these questions will be provided by looking at examples of quality OER options for integration to online learning experiences. The bottom line: OER saves money, provides quality materials to the learning environment, and opens doors to education for students who in the past would not be able to afford higher-level learning programs.

Performance support is typically designed and developed separately from other training solutions. As such, it becomes a solution that may not be used as it was intended, if at all. When part of a complete solution, performance support better serves to enhance and reinforce formal learning initiatives for a more effective solution.

As the financial and operational benefits of big data become more apparent to business leaders, the demand for accountable and impactful learning is growing. Learning portals, MOOCs, the xAPI, social media, and collaboration tools provide new channels for learning delivery, yet most learning departments are stuck measuring the traditional four levels.

Traditional approaches to learning and development are no longer responsive enough to continuously build and refresh the capabilities and skills that organizations and employees need. So workers and business leaders are increasingly looking beyond what their L&D departments have to offer. And those learners are choosing to learn and develop in different ways from a much more diverse range of sources. Meanwhile, most L&D infrastructure is still geared for the same old thing: creating, managing, and delivering formal training.

Organizational learning’s transformation is being driven by two forces: technology and the need for business agility. In the industrial era of the last century, training was the default for organizations, as information was not easily accessible and many work tasks were repeatable. Today the opposite is true; information is plentiful and easily accessed and routine work is being automated, creating a greater need for creativity and problem-solving skills. With employees being increasingly comfortable with job movement, social connection must be the new centerpiece.