Define Your LMS Functional Requirements

At this stage in the buying process, it’s time to define your LMS functional requirements and document exactly what features, integrations, deployment options, vendor services and license model you need to be successful.

How do you define requirements? How can you ensure you’re not overpaying, underbuying or looking at the wrong LMS vendors? Where do you start? Don’t worry, we have you covered!

The simple answer is that you must define LMS functional requirements properly. That might sound laborious… and it is, but we’re here to help!

The Talented Learning Center gives you immediate access to education and tools to help define your LMS requirements easily and quickly so you can find the best learning technology for your organization. Spend less time trying to figure out where to begin by letting us jumpstart and accelerate your research.

Defining LMS functional requirements prevents common mistakes

While it can be difficult and time-consuming to define your organization’s LMS functional requirements, it’s a crucial part of the buying process. By defining your learning content and system requirements accurately and thoroughly in advance, these common – yet costly – mistakes can be avoided:

• After contracts are finalized, you learn that the vendor’s LMS platform doesn’t provide the exact functionality for the training your organization needs or expects.
• The new learning management system’s native integrations don’t work with your organization’s tech ecosystem, such as your CRM, Customer Service, HR or single sign-on applications.
• During the LMS implementation, you start receiving change orders for incremental services and costs that were not included in the Statement of Work.
• At the end of the year, you find yourself activating and deactivating learners because you didn’t buy enough licenses and didn’t understand or know the cost of running over the limit.

Defining LMS functional requirements pays off

Although many of the learning management systems on the market appear similar, each is unique. LMS and other learning systems providers specialize by use case support and industries, and as a result have different types and levels of functionality, training format support, integration capability, deployment options, technical certifications, service and implementation capability, global expertise and licensing models.

By defining requirements like a professional, you and your organization will reap these benefits:

• Focus your internal team on what’s important with the new digital learning platform.
• Define business, functional use case, integration, deployment, implementation, support and license requirements to prevent surprises.
• Your vendor search is narrowed to specialized solutions that do exactly what you need, the way you need it within your budget.
• Vendors are educated more quickly on your needs and provide accurate, impactful and lower-cost proposals.
• The risk of choosing the wrong learning platform is eliminated, both for your organization and for you personally.
• You find your best learning management system or learning platform!

The Talented Learning Center has the resources you need, available on demand, to define your learning management system requirements, prevent the misery of making the wrong choice, and find the best LMS software or elearning platform for your organization’s employees, business partners and customers.

Benefits of Membership

If you are shopping for an LMS or other learning system, join the Talented Learning Center to access deep, fiercely-independent research and education needed to succeed.  We have free and premium membership levels outlined below:

Many resources in the Talented Learning Center are available when you sign up for FREE as a Basic Member. You’ll have access to content such as:

• Learning System Client Case Studies Directory  – Search real-life case studies by use case, vendor name, functionality, location, industry & other criteria.
• The Talented Learning Show Podcast – Information and advice from many practitioners about their learning initiatives.
• Vendor Shortlister – Quickly find qualified vendor options based on hundreds of differentiating criteria.
• Living Vendor Profiles – In-depth and current research on the world’s best learning vendors.
• Executive Briefing Demonstrations – Demos highlighting the business, functional and technical differentiators of top vendor solutions.
• Hot Takes with John Leh (videos) – Tap into John Leh’s expertise in a series of short video reviews and commentary on leading learning systems.

As you’re proceeding through the Learning System Buying Process, you’re likely to face some obstacles and uncertainty about how to proceed. Once again, we’re here to help! Premium Membership in the Talented Learning Center includes many more resources to help you at every stage of the LMS or learning systems buying process. Try it FREE for 7 days when you sign up for Premium Membership, where you’ll receive all the benefits of Basic Membership, plus:

• Ask John Leh Videos – Learn about learning systems technology one question at a time with our library of short informational videos.
• Microlessons, Courses and Certifications – Get up to speed with our library of over 20 (and growing), 15-minute, microlessons on learning systems use cases, stages of the buying process and key functional capabilities.
• On-Demand Webinars – Get in-depth expert advice with our deep catalog of webinars and panel discussions on a wide variety of topics from buying, implementing and improving your learning system initiatives