With so many learning technologies available (seriously, have you seen our corporate training landscape recently?), figuring out where to begin can be challenging. This can be especially tricky for new learning and development (L&D) professionals, who may have less experience purchasing and managing learning technology.

The options may constantly be changing, but the process for making sound technology decisions doesn’t have to. It starts with knowing what you want well before the RFPs go out and the demos hit your inbox.

“I’ve watched a lot of teams start with the tool and work backward. It rarely ends well,” says Beth Gantz, chief revenue officer at Cognota.

A clear understanding of the learning needs, required capabilities and evaluation criteria can help L&D professionals avoid costly purchasing mistakes.

Here are five steps to help you choose learning technology more effectively.

1. Define the Problem Before Exploring Solutions

The first trap to avoid is shiny object syndrome. Demos can be impressive, convincing and, above all, distracting. Once you’re talking to multiple vendors, it’s easy to lose track of what matters.

When Valerie Marsh, CPTM, senior director of L&D at Jushi, started to make technology procurement decisions, she cast a wide net — and immediately regretted it. After researching learning management systems (LMSs), she reached out to 35 companies with interesting options. Soon she had 35 sales contacts competing for her attention. Now she urges other L&D professionals to learn from her mistake.

“Before looking at technology, teams should be able to describe what better looks like. What should learners be able to do that they can’t do today? What should the organization be able to see or measure?” says Melissa Loble, chief learning officer at Instructure. “That clarity makes it much easier to separate the capabilities you really need from the ones that just look good in a demo.”

You should also confirm that your problems are something technology could even fix. Pay attention to where the learning team is getting stuck, making gut decisions because they don’t have the data or spending time that the business never sees, suggests Gantz.

“Ask one question: If we fixed the process tomorrow, would we still need this tool? If not, fix the process first,” Gantz says. “New technology is justified when you can name the gap in a sentence, such as ‘we can’t see X’ or ‘we can’t do Y at our scale,’ and show that no amount of process discipline closes it.”

2. Turn Learning Needs Into Technology Requirements

After years of evaluating learning technology, Marsh has refined her process. Now she starts with an initial list of about 10 vendors rather than 35, and she completes a business needs assessment before contacting any of them.

She creates three categories in a spreadsheet: must-haves, nice-to-haves and “pie in the sky.” The third category might contain aspirational features her company is not ready to use but may take advantage of in the future.

“If I’m evaluating a tool, and even one of my must-have requirements are not met, I never look at the system again,” Marsh explains.

This process helps her narrow down her list of prospects to three or four, and only then will she schedule a demo. “When I get on the phone with the salespeople, I’m speaking from a very informed perspective,” she says. “I already know what their system can do — I just need to see it in action.”

To create your own needs assessment, get input from stakeholders throughout the business. “Talk to the people who will use it,” says Loble. “This means learners, as well as managers, administrators and others who depend on the learning program. They will usually surface needs and friction points that aren’t obvious from a requirements standpoint.”

3. Evaluate Solutions Against Real-World Scenarios

Once you’ve narrowed the field, it’s time to see how the technology performs. While it may be tempting to go with the technology that checks the most boxes on your list, getting hung up on features may be a mistake, warns Loble.

“A good demo can make many capabilities feel essential, even if it has very little to do with the problem you’re trying to solve,” she says.

Before you make your selection, test how each tool handles the real-world challenges your organization faces. “Choose the three or four scenarios that matter most and have each vendor run them live with your data, or something close to it,” says Gantz. “Watch how it handles the messy case, not the clean one. You’ll learn more in an hour than from a hundred-row spreadsheet.”

For example, rather than asking whether a platform supports customized reporting, ask the vendor to demonstrate how a manager would access training records for a specific group of employees. Testing the tasks your team will perform regularly can show you limitations that might not be obvious in a standard demo.

4. Look Beyond the Features

Even when a clear front-runner emerges, there are other factors to consider, including usability, administrative requirements and the vendor relationship.

Consider how easily learners will be able to access and use the technology, as well as the time and resources your team will need to administer it. A platform that meets your functional requirements may still create unnecessary work if it doesn’t fit existing workflows.

“Features will change, but partnership is what lasts,” says Gantz. “With artificial intelligence (AI) changing what’s possible every few months, what a product does today tells you little about where it will be in two years.”

The right partner should be able to advise you on where the industry is headed and bring a point of view that challenges your thinking and helps you improve how you work, she says. “Ask what your team will do differently or faster six months in, and what capacity it will free for higher-value work,” says Gantz. “A vendor that can answer in terms of your ways of working, not their feature list, is one that will keep adding value as the technology changes.”

Gantz suggests meeting the customer success team during the sales process, not after you sign, since they are the people you’ll interact with the most once the contract is done.

Your organization’s needs will also change over time. Consider how your business requirements will evolve over the next five-10 years and pick a partner that can grow with you, says Marsh.

5. Plan for Adoption and Success

Before making a final decision, make sure you can answer these questions:

• Is this tool fixing the problem we set out to solve? And, importantly, will you be able to clearly demonstrate impact? “Completion still matters, but it’s only one signal,” says Loble. “L&D leaders also need to understand whether people are building skills, applying what they learned and becoming more capable in the work they’re being asked to do.”
• Are stakeholders aligned on what success requires? Marsh points out that sometimes L&D needs to have difficult conversations, particularly with the IT department around technology ownership and admin access, but that alignment is a non-negotiable.
• Will anyone even use it? Identify who will be responsible for introducing the technology, helping employees use it and addressing adoption challenges. As Gantz advises, you should plan the rollout as carefully as the selection process itself. “The goal isn’t a new tool. It’s a better way of working that the business can see,” she says.

Making the Most of Your Technology Investment

Choosing the right learning technology takes time and careful planning. By starting with a clear understanding of your needs and evaluating solutions against real-world requirements, you can make more informed decisions that support your learners and your business.

For more guidance on getting the most from your technology investments, explore Training Industry’s needs assessment toolkit, which includes practical resources for evaluating, optimizing and managing your learning technology ecosystem.