One of the many challenges that organizations encounter nowadays is how to pick the best Learning Management System (LMS) to suit their business requirements.
On this Page
Given the abundance of the available LMSes in the market today, picking the most suitable system for your business needs is a daunting task. Many parameters and aspects come into consideration while taking this decision. This blog brings to you some quick tips that can help you pick the best LMS for your business.
- 1. Identify and state your learning and development goals in advance
What are the predefined learning and development goals? What type of training or courses do you deliver to your learners? Finding answers to these questions is important to have a clear understanding of what you intend to achieve while using an LMS. This will ensure that you choose an LMS that fulfils the objectives of learning and development, and satisfies the needs of your learners.
- 2. Get a fair understanding of the skills of your learning and development team.
Knowing the capabilities of your learning and development team will help you choose an LMS that compliments their skill sets and improves their efficiency and productivity.
- 3. Evaluate your current learning and development plan
Evaluating your existing learning and development strategy will help you identify aspects that are working effectively and those which need improvement. This will help youselect an LMS that utilizes the available learning materials and polishes those aspects that do not support your business and learning objectives.
- 4. Gather feedback from the learning and development team
Feedback is a very important practice that is often neglected in big organizations. Honest opinions from the learning and development team and learners can help you identify what needs to be improved, which integrations can work better, what appeals more to the learners and many such similar aspects. As features in an LMS can make the work of teams easier and manageable, collecting their feedback ensures that their opinions and inputs matter and their ideas are considered and valued. Feedback can also help you identify learner problems in-depth.
- 5. Analyze technical aspects and limitations
Find details about how the LMS can be integrated with your existing software or technology. How can your learners access information and on which devices? What are the limitations of your existing LMS and does the new LMS meet your technical requirements? If you want that your learners can access information on mobile devices, then your LMS should be supported for that purpose.
- 6. Check how relevant the LMS features are to your requirements
Before taking any decision on buying an LMS, you must define a clear set of required features. Analyze each LMS feature individually in comparison to your current system and identify the ones that you really need. How important are leaderboards in your LMS? Do you need gamification-related features? What are the available social learning and micro-learning features? A lot of available LMSes offer many elements that may not be essential for your business requirements and you must carefully consider that while assessing an LMS.
- 7. Verify the support availability with the LMS
While some LMS vendors offer LMS administrators, others offer 24*7 support to make sure that you utilize the LMS to its complete potential and achieve your learning and development goals. Therefore, ask for the services available with the chosen LMS package to ensure assistance and support while getting familiar with the new LMS.
- 8.Adaptability and maintenance of LMS
Although you should essentially look for technical features in an LMS that are in alignment with your current business goals, you must also think about the long-term business plans. Ask how the LMS can adapt to your probable future needs and meet your growing business requirements to ensure that it is not a short-term investment. After all, you would not want to invest a huge amount in a short-term requirement.
- 9. Take a Demo
There’s nothing better than taking a live demo yourself or with an expert from your team, who has a good understanding of the LMS requirements. Remember that an LMS is a huge investment that an organization makes and taking a trial before buying it is a wise call. A demo can help you understand all the useful features and identify the ones that are not.
- 10.Check the data tracking capabilities
Tracking capabilities of an LMS can help you in gauging the performance of your learners. Undeniably, the design and development features of an LMS are important to deliver a good learning experience, but it is incomplete without the feature to track performances and learners’ growth.
These above ten tips for buying an LMS can help you avoid costly trial and error purchase decisions.
To know about Abara LMS features and how an Abara LMS can be customized to suit your business requirements, give us a call today or drop in a message here a and we will get back to you at the earliest!