Elearning! Magazine: Building Smarter Companies via Learning & Workplace Technologies.
mine when I was in the private sector. In my mind, courseware fell into three
tiers: >>Tier 1: "Vanilla, out-of-the-box" cours-
es like standard training for Project Management, Microsoft, Oracle, and a host of similar offerings;
>>Tier 2: "Slightly Customized" courses, which might be my own organization's particular implementation of an SAP or Oracle product; and
>>Tier 3: "Proprietary" courses which might be "our secret sauce,
" or training
on my enterprise's latest product offer- ings and services.
As you move up the tiers from vanilla to
proprietary, the value of the courseware to an organization increases substantially. Armed with that knowledge, I
approached a vendor of mine who was a provider of thousands of courses in the Tier 1 category and asked the vendor to allow me to "slightly customize" each of their courses to meet my organization's specific needs. These were small changes, like adding
my company's unique security require- ments or our own project management methodology, but they were necessary for the courses to be meaningful in my organ- ization. The upgrades allowed the generic courses to have the impact of a Tier 2 or Tier 3 learning solution. The vendor's initial tendency was to
resist, explaining that their off-the-shelf courses were their intellectual property. But after I explained that I would probably never be able to get rid of them once their courses were a core part of my own course offerings, they eventually relented. Our net savings were substantial. We
were able to shave 80-90 percent off our curriculum development time. So look around at other departments and agen- cies, as well as vendors whose courseware you can leverage.
TIP #3
LEVERAGE A COMMON TECHNOLOGY PLATFORM "Consolidating our agencies
onto one LMS platform … positioned us well for collaboration,
" said Wendy
Frederick, Chief, Learning Systems Management Division, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. "Independently, we're not
Tip #2: We were able to shave 80-90 percent off our curricu-
lum development time by leverag- ing other people's courseware.
going to be able to accomplish what we want to. Resources are far outstripped by demand. The secret is to collaborate with other agencies to accomplish our goals. Sharing similar courses across multiple
"
agencies is one kind of efficiency gained by having a common LMS platform. Some types of courses that might be shared include compliance training and leader- ship courses.
A less obvious benefit of a common
LMS system is discovering that groups have a common demand for a particular course. For instance, several groups might have a need for Oracle training to fill a competency gap. Combining these groups could help you reduce the cost per student trained. Instead of sending one or two people
from each agency to the vendor's class, you could arrange to have the vendor come to a common site to deliver that training to all of them. Instead of paying individually for 10 people (about $7500/day), you might find it much cheaper to have that course delivered in-house by the vendor (about $3000/day).
TIP #4
GO WITH A CLOUD/SAAS LMS SOLUTION The savings from a Cloud or SaaS
LMS solution comes in many forms, when
compared to an on-premise installation: >>Speed of implementation; >>Maintenance and update services han- dled on your behalf;
>>The ability to scale up or down for sea- sonal training or new product training, without having to maintain that high
level of capacity year-round; >>Pricing that scales up or down
with your use of the system; and >>Global infrastructure leveraging. In short, going with a solution
that's supported by a vendor … who, incidentally, thoroughly understands the product … can translate into a lot of savings.
TIP #5
STREAMLINE CLASSROOM MODELS: CREATE HUBS, SPOKES, AND SHARED
FACILITIES The hubs-and-spokes methodology is kind of analogous to how airline industry routes planes. It can help you maximize the impact of your classroom-based services. Instead of teaching all of your courses in
every single location, this methodology uses a regional approach. For example, in the US market, you might establish four main hubs: Washington DC, Chicago, Dallas, and San Francisco. You would offer all of your courses in these locations, including the smaller, more advanced courses.
Elearning! May / June 2012 35