Podcast 82: LMS or TMS — Which is Best for Training Management?

EPISODE 82: LMS or TMS — Which is Best for Training Management?

John Peebles, CEO, Administrate

Are you struggling to scale instructor-led training? Maybe it’s time to add a training management system (TMS) to your tech stack. Before you decide, you’ll probably want to know a few things. Like how does a TMS differ from an LMS? And is it worth the investment?

For reliable answers, I’ve asked John Peebles, CEO at Administrate to join us today. John and his team have been working for over a decade to establish Administrate as a world-class training operations platform. Along the way, they’ve built an enviable client base that includes numerous Fortune 1000 companies.

Can their strategy work for you? Find out on this installment of The Talented Learning Show…

LMS or TMS — Which is Best for Training Management? — KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Many organizations use learning management systems to deliver online courses. But what if you provide live classroom training or hybrid courses? Instructor-led training involves many moving pieces. That’s why a TMS can make a massive difference.

• A TMS relies on templates to automate all sorts of training-related logistics. Working alone or in tandem with an LMS, it dramatically improves synchronous training quality and efficiency.

• The value of a TMS comes primarily from its ability to eliminate time-consuming repetitive tasks and streamline complex training logistics. But it can also drive business growth by increasing training sales revenue and improving utilization rates.

LMS or TMS — Which is Best for Training Management? — Q&A HIGHLIGHTS

Welcome back, John. First, let’s clarify the purpose of a training management system. What’s your view?

A TMS focuses on the logistics surrounding live training. And by live training, I mean physical classroom instruction and synchronous online sessions typically led by an instructor.

So a TMS supports processes like planning, scheduling, communication about when classes are about to start, and so forth. It also tracks sessions and related activities, as well as things like location, so people know where they need to be or where they need to log-in when a class starts.

And of course, even when you have great software to coordinate all of this, other unexpected problems will crop up. An instructor gets sick. Or somebody has to transfer from one class to another. A training management system helps organizations resolve these issues, as well.

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Yes. And conversely, an LMS focuses on the digital aspects of learning such as elearning, virtual learning and document management. It enables online content delivery rather than the administration of live training. 

Correct. Learning management systems are great at many things. They can tell you if someone attended a class. But there’s not much automation there. You almost always need to re-enter data, which is cumbersome and time-consuming. An LMS is a very thin treatment for this kind of deep, complex problem.

So, if you offer elearning in combination with classroom training or synchronous online training, you’ll want both an LMS and a TMS. That’s because each is very good at different things. If you knit them together so they work in parallel, they complement each other very nicely.

Makes sense. So in your experience, who benefits most from a TMS?

Organizations that get the most value from this kind of system deliver high-volume classroom training. In other words, they conduct dozens of classes a week — minimum.

Many of our customers conduct hundreds or even thousands of classes a week, all over the world. They do this in an in-person or synchronous virtual classroom environment. And their goal is to get learners up-to-speed as quickly as possible with whatever they need to learn.

Elearning is great for many things. But if you want the fastest way for people to learn about a process or product and become proficient at it, classroom training is preferred.

But of course, classroom training has its own drawbacks. It is much more difficult to manage — particularly at scale. That’s where a TMS comes into play.

Find out how real-world companies are achieving more with learning systems that create business value. Get inspiration from dozens of success stories in our free LMS Case Study Directory…

Again, that’s different from an LMS, which supports any type of learning delivery, whether it’s instructor-led training or not.

Yeah. I think the keyword there is self-paced training. The last thing a customer success organization wants to hear is, “Well, to learn a new product or service, people can just go at their own pace.” Right?

We don’t want that. We want the customer education process to be more like a personal trainer at the gym. We want to move people along and help them achieve their goals as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Self-paced learning might be useful when I’m on break and logging in while I grab a cup of coffee. LMSs are great at that.

But if you really want to be sure people learn something faster than they normally would themselves, it’s better to offer an experience that feels like a trainer who’s on hand at the gym. When I’m on my own, I may stop at rep 5 or 6. But a personal trainer will gently nudge me until I reach 9 or 10 reps.

That’s what we see with classroom training. It gets the most out of people as quickly as possible, by bringing them together for focused learning and practice and making sure they retain this information, so they can move forward.

Okay, let’s move on to content. What does that look like in a training management system?

Well, a TMS often has PDFs and other content to help people find out where to go and what to know before a class starts. An LMS may include that, too. And an LMS goes deeper into the learning process with SCORM-based content and elearning objects that usually aren’t stored in a TMS.

In contrast, a TMS ensures that training labs or other practical training environments have access to essential physical or digital resources. And there’s a line that goes right down the middle.

Ensuring the right things are done to prep and schedule physical resources is a challenge. For example, our customer, Roche, sells a massive number of blood analyzer machines. Before hands-on training classes, they need to be sure the machines are loaded with fake blood and are ready to go. And afterwards, it needs to be cleaned up.

Hands-on training involves many resources like this. And each one needs to be treated like a piece of content because it has to be available when people need it, or they can’t complete training.

Want more details about how training management systems work? Check the Administrate listing in our LMS Directory including a product flyover video, customer stories, reviews and more…

Right…

The second piece is digital, and that’s where we find really great partners like CloudShare.

Let’s say my company has sold you software. I can put you in a class with whiteboards and teach you all sorts of things. But at the end of the day, we want you to log-in to our software and perform exercises that are repeatable.

That’s where digital lab providers like CloudShare help. They make sure these scenarios are templated. The TMS can control when and where those scenarios get fired up. Often, each student needs an individual lab environment, so we make sure it’s set up and ready to go.

None of that is LMS functionality. An LMS manages all your digital learning content, but that’s not what a TMS typically does. So, let’s talk about specific TMS features you won’t find in any LMS.

The core feature is the idea of templating out a classroom workflow so an administrator doesn’t need to spend hours making hundreds of set-up decisions.

The challenge with classrooms is that we want to run them as identically as possible, even in many countries and regions of the world. And with every class, the interchangeable parts are always changing.

No doubt…

That’s a lot of stuff to keep in someone’s head. It’s a lot to keep in a spreadsheet. But unfortunately, it’s often kept in 10, 12 or 15 spreadsheets. Many organizations struggle just to maintain a current list of approved instructors to consider when making a scheduling decision.

Buying or selling a customer-focused learning system? Get independent insights you can trust, with our in-depth analysis of 20 top solutions. Learn about our 2024 Customer LMS Capabilities Report

Yep…

And once I know which instructors are able to teach a class, I have to go calendar by calendar by calendar to find someone who is available. That usually means I’ll just pick the first person I find. But that may not be the best match. Or if I’m trying to balance workloads across instructors, it may not be the fairest decision.

However, with a template that maps what each class looks like, a TMS makes the process much easier, more efficient and effective…

…For complete answers to this and more questions on the benefits of a TMS to coordinate instructor-led training, listen to the entire podcast on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, on Amazon, or right here on our site.

Find Out More About Administrate

Check my Hot Take Review of this training management system on our YouTube channel…

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