It doesn't have to cost a lot... but it does require a focus.
PUBLISHED: 26/07/2018
I joined my current organisation a couple of years ago. I was asked to look into our exisiting learning technology and build a strategy for improvement. At the time, we had an LMS, an aging e-learning authoring tool, and an assessment tool. We also spent lavishly on content providers, more 'portals' than I can count, but were bemoaining our inability to utilise the latest silver bullet (video), and were looking to purchase more Learning Experience Systems. Every other day I was being asked to fix, buy, create, implement.
You can probably imagine that the underlying architectures were a bit of a mess; that there was plethora of interfaces and data feeds that needed regular upkeep, that there was a mound of un-used, hidden content, and that there was an inordinate amount of meaningless data hidden in the depths of the LMS.
So... what to do? Create.
I set a very simple strategy; let's stop buying, and lets start investigating what we already have, lets maximise our already considerable spend, lets improve our relationships and leverage our vendor support mechanisms, and lets focus on one or two new delviery channels that we know will work within our systems architecutre, and simultaneiously improve our strategic offering.
So... after 18 months, where did that get us?
- Well our LMS is now the top app within the organisation.
- We erradicated the need for end users to 'search' the LMS to find content. Content is now directly acesisble from anywhere within our network (our comms department liked that one).
- We improved the quality and effectiveness of our elearning, as well as reduced production time (it used to take 25 days to produce a course, now it takes 5). We've also increased our capacity to design digital assets too.
- We enabled podcasting, and embedded 'user generated' and 'micro' concepts and solutions.
- ... a stable ViLT platform, and have re-written our ... to ... 'delivery shedule' resulting in easy access to training as well as increase in all quality measures, and decrease in training costs.
- We employed blended designs to reduce training time from 18 weeks to 8 weeks (with an uplift in output)
- ... a powerful instructional design metholodgy that engages even senior stakeholder
- We use social learning
- We build interactive microsites in an afternoon, and update them regularly based on user feedback
- We measure engagement, qualiity and impact and are currently working on ROI/ROE
- We have a very passionate and digitally literate L&D team
So... how much did this cost... in fact, not a 'lot'. The technology was already there, it just need understanding, a touch of optimisation, a bit of design thinking, and a smidge of relationship building.
So... what's next? A little investment is needed for the next step; implementing AI, Playlists, Full VILT integration, perhaps a content revision, and a complete re-fresh of our competency approach.
Do reach out if you like to talk modern organisational learning.
I think the main challenge is that by the time we are ready for the tech challenges of today we're already behind the curve. Most of us are running just to keep up.
Brian Leith, Transformation Consultant
Anonymous User 28th Nov 2018