W204 - LMS Consolidation, Underlying Design More Important Than Platform

Transcription

1 W204 - LMS Consolidation, Underlying Design More Important Than Platform Assess the scalability of your organization s LMS platform Evaluate an LMS based upon the size and character of different learner populations John Zonneveld, Senior Consultant, Latitude Consulting Group office: (888) x153 direct: (586) john.zonneveld@latitudecg.com Latitude Consulting Group, Inc.

2 How do you consolidate learning initiatives across departments and organizational units and scale them to meet the needs of a large, widely dispersed learner community? Scalability (the degree to which the LMS can handle an increase in the volume of instruction and in the size of the student body and still function properly) becomes an essential consideration when it comes time for you to select the application for LMS consolidation. How relevant is the LMS development platform (.NET or J2EE) to scalability? How does LMS scalability benefit from a well-designed multi-tier architecture? Understanding the answers to these questions will help you learn how your organization can identify a well-designed LMS and scale it by adding computing power. The Extended and Enterprise-Wide Workforce When selecting an LMS for a company-wide enterprise implementation, an organization should look at the size and character of different learner populations inside and outside of its boundaries. What is the largest user population? How much do business requirements vary among learner populations? As the number of learner populations increase, learning and other system infrastructures become more decentralized to handle the different requirements of each population. Requirements may be dictated by geographic location. International data privacy laws often require market-specific learning strategies. One sales training curriculum is appropriate for a more price sensitive market, but another curriculum better fits brand loyal markets. In geographic areas extending regionally and globally and consisting of a dozen markets, the result can be a larger number of learning experiences and larger number of dispersed learners. As learner populations extend beyond corporate boundaries, potential learners could be suppliers, distributors, resellers, retail outlets, and even customers. Many of these populations are independent businesses with dissimilar business practices, which makes training more challenging and consolidation more beneficial. Equally important is the ability of an LMS to flex to support any internal organizational structure. Larger corporations could have tens or hundreds of layers, arms, divisions, brands, departments, etc. to their organization while smaller organizations may only have a few. The LMS should be able to accommodate these varying structures while not requiring the application to be modified by software developers to do so. This means that the LMS must be able to segregate the data of the various parts of an organization (internal or external). The LMS must utilize both organizational hierarchies and position/role-based hierarchies to filter the data available to the various users of the application. Consolidation Challenges and Barriers The need for a learning and performance strategy and in order to cut the cost and complexity associated with that strategy, more and more organizations are seeking to consolidate learning populations under a single LMS. By managing learning and business data more efficiently, the organization can identify what factors, including learning and certification, affect performance metrics, such as customer satisfaction, sales volume, and market share. For example, one study involving a major automotive OEM evaluated the variables believed to have an impact on dealership performance. Out of the 500+ studied variables, only 17 were proven to have a direct impact on dealer performance. The study revealed that certification- 2

3 based training provided the largest direct improvement in performance while non-certification based training did not. Top executives must develop a learning strategy that delivers the right training to the right people at the right place and time. Two barriers can prevent the successful implementation of a learning strategy: a tight training budget and the large, geographically dispersed workforce that must be consolidated. With a tight training budget it becomes necessary to transition to lower cost, more effective learning modes (web-based delivery and blended learning) in order to reduce administrative costs. When the workforce is geographically dispersed (like dealership service centers, for example), training becomes logistically problematic. Either training personnel need to travel to multiple locations to deliver training or field personnel need to travel to training locations. Having a distributed system of training centers addresses this issue to some extent, but such a system also creates other inefficiencies. Either administration of the training is also distributed, which impacts visibility into the training program (since information is not centralized), or the corporate administrators must expend more time and effort to manage and schedule resources for training. Getting the right training to different learner populations compounds the complications, since the right training will vary among different departments, organizational units, and external units. Scalability Large, dispersed user population Tight budget Multiple Systems Tight budget Consolidation Large, dispersed user population A tension driving the LMS consolidation decision in opposite directions exists between these two barriers. LMS consolidation can help overcome the tight budgeting barrier by centralizing infrastructure and reducing administrative effort with a single management tool. However, it could be argued that 3

4 multiple systems can best meet the differing needs of large, dispersed learner populations. Scalability becomes the focal point that can reconcile the tension created by these two barriers. Administrative Scalability No matter how many different populations need to share a single LMS, it should still be easy to use and manage. Several barriers to administrative scalability can surface during LMS consolidation. The right training varies among different demographic units This barriers can be addressed by an LMS that provides flexibility in defining organizational units, as illustrated in the following automotive example. In an LMS suitable for consolidating learning initiatives, these demographic units can represent internal and external organizational structures and mirror the organizational hierarchy. Individual learners can be associated with different position codes in different demographic units. Set-and-forget planning In order for demographic structures to work effectively, the various levels of the organization must have access to a tool with real-time gap analysis capabilities for both managers and employees to track their progress towards various individual and organizational performance objectives. When gaps are identified, the managers and employees must be able to close the gaps as quickly as possible. From a technology perspective, regardless of whether the organization is implementing a certification track, a compliance program, a career development path or a job skill or competency curriculum, the LMS should use the same basic configuration scheme to support these programs and target demographic units accordingly. A common scheme reduces learning curves for administrators and increases operational efficiency. 4

5 In addition to providing an interface that would make it easier to identify the learning needs of demographic units and the markets they belong to, an LMS must also reduce the burden on both managers and staff to schedule training. Needs or interest list features combined with autoenrollment provide a mechanism to automatically schedule individuals according to training needs and preferred training locations or delivery methods. When a manager determines training needs, the manager can match whoever needed training with a list of the courses they needed. Courses added to an interest list can follow the requirements set forth in a predefined certification, or they can be added to form unique learning objectives for each employee according to their needs. Interest-based registration saves time for both the training program administrators and the employees. If desired, managers can add their employees to interest lists once on a quarterly, annual, or other routine basis ( set-and-forget ). Managers set training requirements and then let the system manage schedules and enrollment. This type of arrangement not only provides setand-forget planning to channel partner managers, but to district managers and field managers as well. For managers in the field organization, resource allocation and planning and budgeting can be made easier by reviewing submitted needs, forecasting demand for training content, and making arrangements to meet demand. Interest-based auto-enrollment capabilities also reduce the burden to the employee and manager by automatically alerting students by when they are enrolled in class. The employee no longer needs to determine their learning needs, locate the appropriate courses offerings, and then enroll in the class. Another level of automation would use job function, location, data feeds from other systems, and other factors to determine when and what types of training are needed and automatically enroll the employee in relevant courses. 5

6 Traditional, classroom-based learning complicated by the Earth For classroom training, geographic locale is an additional consideration, separate from the corporate and organizational structure. As part of its targeted training delivery and auto-enrollment logic, an LMS managing an extended geographical area must include the proximity of work locations to training centers as well as topographical considerations in between (i.e. rivers, mountain ranges, etc.). 6

7 Load Scalability LMS consolidation increases the learner population, which adds additional stress to the technical infrastructure. This stress can reduce LMS response time (how quickly the system responds to user input by performing a function and displaying the results) to unacceptable levels Response time limit for number of expected concurrent users Users LMS Response Time It is important to understand what a concurrent user is and how different users can be classified. Concurrent users are those users that are making a system request (navigating to another page, submitting a configuration form, downloading content) at the same time. This is not the same as the number of users logged onto the system. Not all logged on users are making system requests; many are passively viewing what is displayed on the screen. Active users have a record in the LMS database and can currently access the system. This group includes concurrent users, users logged on to the system, and users with access that are not currently using the system. Total users include active and inactive users. Inactive users have a record in the LMS database for data management and historical reporting but they are no longer registered users that can access the system. An increase in concurrent users has the greater effect on LMS response time, although the size of the database reflected by the total number of users can affect data query time. Three factors that can impact LMS response time: Client system (the PC and network used by the learner). The client system s impact on scalability can be controlled by establishing minimum system requirements for users. 7

8 The hardware infrastructure of the installed LMS application (server, OS, network). Building up the hardware infrastructure can increase application scalability. Increasing scalability by this route, however, does come at a cost that can be partially mitigated by outsourcing. Methods like setting up server farms can distribute the additional loads across many web, application and database servers. The LMS application itself. A well-designed LMS application can provide good baseline load scalability and minimizes the infrastructure cost to meet scalability requirements. Code and query optimization are crucial to an Enterprise LMS. Three-Tier Application Design The development design of an LMS is more important than the platform (.NET or J2EE) used to develop the LMS. Given either platform, a well-designed LMS will outperform a poorly coded LMS. In a three-tier application design, the user interface, functional process logic ("business rules"), and data storage and access are developed and maintained as independent, reusable modules, most often on separate physical hardware platforms. 8

9 This application design provides several scalability advantages. For web-based application delivery, a multi-tier architecture consists of Web browsers pointing to a 1) Web server that displays (presentation tier) information from 2) a J2EE or.net application server (logic tier) that moves and processes data read from and written to 3) databases (data tier). A well-designed LMS handles these tiers in a modular way to optimize program operation. A poorly designed LMS that, for example, makes logical decisions and calculations in the presentation tier instead of the business tier creates a performance bottle-neck that adversely affects load scalability. Keeping tiers separate also allows the LMS to benefit from technology improvements over time, while minimizing the impact of the changing technology on the application itself. In the previous example of a poorly designed LMS, a requirement to support a specific browser would require rewriting application code related to both presentation and logic processing, and the likelihood of introducing new software bugs would be much greater. A well-designed LMS would only require changes to presentation processing. Queries to the database should also be optimized to improve scalability. For example, a user database that gets quite large (hundreds of thousands of users), can begin to impact performance. Queries take longer since each record is checked to see if it matches each of the query s criteria (find the service technicians at Liberty dealership with 5-star certification). In addition to optimizing the queries themselves, a scalable LMS will employ other means of ensuring top-notch performance (i.e. tuning, creating necessary views, truncating unnecessary log files, etc.). 9

10 Evaluating the LMS for Consolidation Eight key areas can help buyers understand these companies and what they offer as part of a comprehensive consolidation solution. Must have: load scalability. For an enterprise that is consolidating a large number of learners in many different learner populations, scalability is crucial to deliver online learning management and content to users within acceptable performance limits. In a channel with tens or hundreds of thousands of users, the system must be able to process thousands of concurrent transactions. In addition to the underlying design of the learning management software, the vendor s hosting services and the system s hardware configuration affect the solution s scalability and ability to handle a large number of users. Must have: administrative scalability. Technical feature requirements can be grouped into two areas. Core functionality that any LMS should have and administrative scalability features that are designed for the training needs of a diverse user population. No matter how many different populations need to share a single LMS, it should still be easy to use and manage. Some features that impact administrative scalability include targeted training distribution (including geographic locales), set-and-forget enrollment, and departmental and organizational planning tools. Must have: content delivery. The LMS must be able to launch e-learning content to facilitate just-in-time and distance learning with geographically distributed channel partners. Most LMSs are SCORM or AICC compliant and can launch any online course content that also complies with those standards. Many managed learning services and training outsourcing vendors also offer content management and authoring systems as well as instructional design. Must have: system integration. Large-scale system integration at several points must occur for a successful implementation of an enterprise-wide learning and certification management system. Ideally, the system should integrate with an HR system to import employee information into the LMS as administrators and users (single point of truth for employee demographic data). To facilitate distance and blended learning, the system will need to integrate with your organization s software tool for online instructor-led courses. To link training with business results, the system should also integrate with a performance tracking scorecard, performance management system or other BI tools. Should have: statistical analytical expertise. While LMS consolidation in and of itself can create ROI through cost savings and reduced administrative effort, using statistical techniques to create alignment between employee development and business priorities can yield additional benefit. When integrated with performance data, analytical expertise can be applied to continually improve training and certification programs and align those programs with corporate business objectives. Should have: industry experience. Some vendors position their offerings for specific industry and business solutions. While many aspects of learning and certification management are essentially the same, each industry and set of business problems presents its own challenges. To the extent that a vendor has past experience in your industry, the vendor can provide additional expertise to interpret the learning requirements of your organization s channel and configuring their system accordingly. A vendor that has channel experience in your industry is also more likely to have a system that has the required technical features and functionality. 10

11 Should have: data management expertise. Having data management expertise outside of learning management systems can greatly help with LMS integration and consolidation. Value can be added in other areas as well. The vendor can help use data warehousing techniques to consolidate performance, learning, and other types of data in a centralized location that can be leveraged by many different corporate users. Should have: web portal expertise. Similar to data management expertise, web portal expertise can help with integration and consolidation. An organization may use several different web portals to communicate with different learner populations including those that cross corporate boundaries. Web portal expertise means the learning management system can be integrated with multiple portals more easily. 11