Over the past couple of decades, the learning tech ecosystem has become increasingly complex. As the possibilities for creating more dynamic learning experiences have increased, many learning leaders live with a delta between what should be possible leveraging their tech stack and what’s achievable in their environment. The underlying causes for this delta may be specific to the organization’s platforms, policies and infrastructure, but L&D teams and their learners experience the delta in terms of gaps between systems, constraints on the learner experience and silos of data. Bridging these gaps requires a unique expertise — fluency with both technology and learning — but the advantages are worth the investment. An optimized learning ecosystem doesn’t limit or constrain — it affords new possibilities, it breaks down the wall between learning and performance, and it contributes to the expanding intelligence of the business.

More Value from Your Investment

Many L&D professionals in large organizations have only a conceptual understanding of their tech ecosystem. They are more likely to be familiar with problems they attribute to their learning management system (LMS). For example, learners may be juggling multiple logins for the same journey. The learning experiences themselves can also be disconnected or confusing when they reside on different platforms or when they were developed using different tools. Perhaps the most common issue is that learner data can’t be used to show overall progress or performance.

For these reasons, many L&D team members navigate a set of workarounds and constraints when doing their work. They may aspire to creating robust, multi-channel journeys but stick with the tried-and-true tutorial for practical purposes. When it comes to data, they might even avoid what they know to be best practice simply to save themselves a headache.

It’s time to get unstuck. A well-designed, well-integrated learning tech infrastructure can bring together authoring, learning management, delivery, learner experience and human resource platforms. It can enable scale and efficiency. An optimized learning ecosystem enables the aggregation of data and the availability of that data to the entire infrastructure. It creates possibilities rather than constraints. It also supports diverse learning modalities, from traditional web-based courses to experiential and collaborative approaches.

Benefits of Optimization

“Too often, learning leaders feel limited by their learning tech. They should feel empowered,” says Todd Miller, chief technology officer at AllenComm. “The frustration felt by many L&D professionals when accommodating the eccentricities of their legacy systems can lead to a culture of acceptance when it comes to the constraints and avoidance of resolving the underlying issues.”

However, the benefits of harmonizing your learning technologies can far outweigh the additional effort. Aside from the learner and L&D benefits already mentioned, there can be significant savings in terms of cost. The costs associated with redundant platforms or with premature replacement of legacy systems can strain budgets for years. The total cost of ownership for the ecosystem increases in direct proportion to these decisions — leading to increased administration costs, user licensing, testing, security, etc.

Building the Strategy

Of course, the strategy for a high-performing learning tech environment will be unique to the organization, but that strategy will usually include the following:

• Integration: Integrating the various technologies that comprise the learning ecosystem will create a holistic view of learner data and scaffold the entirety of the learner journey. Learners should be able to see all of their progress — from assessments, tutorials, project-based learning, cohort activities, etc. — in one location.
• Personalization: Aggregating learning data from all of the technologies in the ecosystem can enable greater personalization of learning experiences. It can be used to create individual learning paths, provide targeted practice, curate role-specific learning experiences and more.
• Collaboration: It can be difficult to facilitate collaboration at scale. However, a well-designed learning ecosystem can enable the right cohorts, queue up the right coaching and feedback, and connect learning activities with on-the-job practice.
• Data-Driven Decision Making: Learning outcomes improve when learners have access to comprehensive data on learner behavior, performance and preferences. And, armed with anonymized learner data, L&D teams can make informed decisions about the efficacy of their programs.
• Scalability: As the need for mandatory training such as compliance training, safety training, procedural training and professional development continue to increase, it’s not efficient to simply add more and more training to the menu. Many organizations need the ability to manage the overall portfolio of mandatory learning for their employees. They need to evaluate the investment in training time against factors such as risk and ROI. Not only do they require data to make these decisions, but they also require a learning tech strategy that enables them to scale learning requirements to individuals. They need to move from a just-in-case delivery model to a just-enough approach based on the specific needs of the learner.

Cross-Functional Support of the Ecosystem

In many large organizations, the need for scale leads to specialization of the functions on their learning team. Additionally, the need for governance of technology can further sequester decision-making about learning technology to the domain of IT. These realities often set up an invisible wall when those responsible for learning technology and those who are responsible for using it.

To truly realize the full potential of your learning technology, however, it’s important to foster cross-functional support for the change and enlist the help of outside experts when there are gaps. In most cases, the various technologies of your learning tech stack are supplied by different vendors (few of whom have expertise in the technology of their fellow suppliers or competitors). By working with experts who are independent or tech-agnostic, you can more easily access unbiased recommendations and innovative solutions. Your legacy environment may already have the functionality you need. More importantly, you need to work with learning tech experts with a firsthand understanding of the learning domain. They need to understand the needs of L&D teams and their learners.

Getting Started

“Clients worry that changing their situation would require an expensive change to their LMS or other enterprise platform. Depending on what you want to accomplish, there are usually several different ways to get there,” says Miller. An overhaul is not usually necessary to improve the learning ecosystem. In reality, many optimization opportunities exist by integrating systems and by upskilling L&D on the possibilities.

Taking some small steps, such as a pilot, can help gain buy-in. It can help to establish the business case for additional investment, and it can help to enlist the support of cross-functional stakeholders. Ultimately, choosing the right partners — including independent experts with both the tech and learning background — can help bridge the siloes faced by some organizations.