As readers of this blog will know, the LMS Debate has been in full flow this year. This was triggered by a number of blog postings from the Principals of the Internet Time Alliance who highlighted the fact that these "command and control" systems are no longer appropriate to support the full range of learning, working and performance needs of the organisation - particularly as learning needs to be integrated into working, and not vice versa. For those of you who haven't followed the debate, we have documented it here.
Whereas a number of organisations are already pushing their LMS to the side or abandoning it altogether, a recent article suggested there there are still organisations shopping for their first LMS. Harold Jarche and I began to discuss who these organisations might be, and I originally began to plot them along Moore's technology adoption curve.
However, Harold has picked this up and done much more work on it and has come up with the following chart, which places the LMS in the context of how an organization approaches "workplace learning" - ie whether it is Compliance-focused, Learning-focused or Work-focused. (See Harold's blog posting, From learning to working technologies)
Harold also succinctly explains this in terms of the adoption curve as well:
"The Late Majority and Laggards are focused on meeting their compliance needs. Many of these are in traditional industries. They are purchasing one of their first learning management systems (LMS) and are focused on features & functions, which is usually a large shopping list provided by a variety of constituents.
The Early Majority are focused on learning and particularly course delivery. They are comprised in large part of education and training (E&T) intensive organizations, including schools. Most have existing contracts that bind them to a vendor. Some are considering open source (OS) as an option to their costly systems.
The Innovators & Early Adopters have shifted to a work focus. Many are in newer industries, with little legacy software. Others are in more traditional industries who have seen the urgent need for change. They are focused on supporting social and informal learning and integrating it into the work flow. These companies are retiring their LMS and are outsourcing formal course development that accounts for only 10% of their performance needs."
Where are you on the LMS adoption curve?
Jay Cross has visualised the evolution of learning systems like this:
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