Training Industry Quarterly - Winter 2010 - 11

LEARNING TECHNOLOGIES | RICK J. CROWLEY THE LMS IS A GREAT PLACE TO START REMOVING REDUNDANCY THE FUTURE OF LEARNING MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS his prediction may (or may not) sound shocking: The LMS, as an application, is not going to be around for the long haul. I’ve come to that prediction based on the need for corporations to become more “efficient” in the way they spend their IT dollars and on the drive to remove redundancy in requirements across the corporation. It is getting harder and harder for companies to justify the redundant spend on systems and IT people to support them. How many dining rooms, furnaces and driveways are necessary to optimize the home? The only services that have been defined in the LMS world that would not necessarily be addressed by other applications or services are learning maps, learning tracking, assessment and prescription (modifying learning plans to account for gaps). Services that are generally redundant in applications include sign-on, feedback, workflow, search, user experience and help. The LMS is a great place to start removing redundancy. We already have access to supported services that would cost pennies on the dollar to design any unique requirements. What we need now is a model that covers most if not all of the business requirements for learning. I’d start here: • Business Operations Services (for the learning business), including reporting, needs analysis and support and security for the overall user experience. • Content Management Services (for content providers), including registry, content storage, workflow, production and presentation. • Learning Management Services (for the learner), including single sign-on, registration, commerce, T search/browse/catalog, resource management and user feedback. Learning is as much (or more) about information, collaboration, communication and training as it is about the need for a separate system to support the learning function. As companies begin to standardize on services to leverage the real benefits of SAAS, there will be a need to rationalize all services in all business functions to remove redundancy and optimize the technical investment. This means any or all applications will begin to be whittled down to their unique services, and the solutions will be less about buying or leveraging an entire application and more about plug-and-play services to support the overall IT infrastructure. Many LMS vendors are moving into talent, performance, knowledge, content and/or employee management. If you are getting ready to make a decision on an LMS, you should consider aligning your requirements with the other services your company has to offer and spend more of your dollars on the process to align learners with the content they need when they need it. Rick J. Crowley is an active consultant on learning technology and architecture. Prior to that Rick was senior director, learning systems, for NetApp University, a driving force behind Cisco’s e-learning adoption and implementation and held the position of director of technology training for Oracle. E-mail Rick at editor@trainingindustry.com. Training Industry Quarterly, Winter 2010 / A Training Industry, Inc. ezine / www.trainingindustry.com/TIQ

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Training Industry Quarterly - Winter 2010

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