We’re not sure if it’s something special that we’ve done, but every day we’re seeing more organizations in the health and medical sectors moving their training programs online. Litmos is becoming quite the crowd favorite! Which is great, as we love the idea that we can help make learning easier for such important industries.

Last week I took some time to ask one of our wonderful clients about their organization, their experience with online learning and how Litmos plays a part…

 

Lane County Health and Human Services promotes and protects the health and well-being of individuals, families, and our communities. Health & Human Services (H&HS) is a broad-based organization which oversees health, mental health, social services, and offender programs in a largely subcontracted system. The subcontract providers are our community partners in a complex service delivery system. The department provides a wide array of direct services, offered on a sliding-scale fee basis.

How did you find out about Litmos originally?

I researched different e-Learning sites to find one that was affordable, easy to administer and easy for the end-user to understand and navigate. Litmos stood out above the rest.

How were you delivering your courses prior to using an online system?

When I first became responsible for the administration of department-wide HIPAA training, we were using a three-part system. The first part consisted of having newly hired employees watch a two-hour video of a lecture given on the topic as it relates to the County as a whole. The second part consisted of a supervisor sitting down with the employee and discussing our department-level policies and procedures as well as how HIPAA played a part in their particular worksite. The third part was a proprietary software which consisted of a slide show and test on keeping data secure. Each part had a separate certificate to be signed and sent through courier to me for tracking.

Why did you choose Litmos as your learning management system?

I moved over to an online course as quickly as I could. Unfortunately, I started with a different online system which turned out to be hard to use for the end-user and not very flexible for the administrator. I looked at every online system I could find within my budget and was thrilled to finally find Litmos. It had everything I needed, except for one reporting feature, which they were considerate enough to add when I told them about it. What really sold the site to me was the fact that it was flexible. If I wanted to change the look or the type of media down the road, it was easy to do. The responsive and communicative staff was also a huge plus.

What benefits do you see in using an online system like Litmos to deliver your courses?

• Provide a way to make your tool available offsite as well as onsite
• Enable easy tracking and reporting
• Are basically familiar to end-users who use other web sites for various functions (especially Litmos)
• Are easy to update
• Free up your IT staff from maintenance (which pays for itself)

- Tina Baker, Lane County


@Schnicker

Hi there, Litmos community!

This week, we’re going to shift gears. Today’s post is the first of a multi-course feast.

In the coming weeks, we’ll talk about a guerrilla process for systems training. As internal or external training consultants, most of us know what it’s like to be understaffed (or over-committed), without a project manager, while facing a time crunch. A scoping/task analysis/design/development cycle can crawl along, especially with reviews and slippage.

I’m proposing that with a little front-end work and a tracking spreadsheet, it’s possible to compress some design/development steps by using Adobe Captivate as your task analysis tool — while you capture.

Consider this situation: You’ve been assigned to create eLearning for a new system. Deadlines are tight. You’re going to do task analysis. You’re sitting with a subject matter expert (SME), who is walking you through the steps of a system task. Question — would you rather make notes and create a flowchart in Visio, or would you rather capture a movie of what your SME did? I prefer movies to parallelograms and six-point text—I’m going with “movie.”

Using guerrilla strategy for task analysis:

• Generates an immediate Captivate movie of each task.
• Gives you an editable capture early in the process–if your SMEs actions are valid, you’re much closer to having your end product.
• Saves (lots of) time—even if a SME is thinking on the-fly, this process is still ultimately faster than constructing and editing flowcharts. If you have to scrap/redo a few captures upon later review, so what? The additional time is limited compared to flowchart analysis and review.

Here’s a rough process for late-in-the-game, guerrilla systems training:

Guerrilla Scope

• Choose broad content areas (identify modules).
• Pick tasks that fit into those content areas (identify tasks).
• Get sign-off on your module/lesson sequence, but allow your client some minor wiggle room (somebody always forgets a task; it’s OK).
• Create your tracking spreadsheet (I call mine a capture log).
• Identify who your SME is for each module and lesson.

Guerrilla Development

• Build a template for your lesson format and navigation elements (e.g. Intro/Show Me (demo)/Try It (interactive simulation)/Summary).
• Create a test lesson for the LMS, and refine as needed.
• Track (in the spreadsheet) confidence levels for system build stability and current process.
• Track your Show Me/Try It captures and edits.
• Edit captures on your own time (i.e. without using your SME’s time).
• Track issues.
• Gather specific content for your intro/summary slides.

Guerrilla Finishing Up

• Create your lessons: stitch together your intro, captures, and summary into one Captivate movie.
• Receive your tiara or crown.

There are a few tricks to make this whole plan work:

• Get comfortable enough with a simple process in Captivate to pull it off. When you’re sitting with your SME, you should be moving as confidently as you do in Microsoft Word. I’ll give you some hints in a future post about how to do this.
• Build your spreadsheet at the beginning. This effort will save you from madness. I’ll show you an example of what to track, and how to track it.

Here’s the deal: A few years ago, I was subcontracting on a time-sensitive systems training project for a large hospital. I suggested the guerrilla process (It’s a movie!). I was politely, but firmly, told I was nuts. Well, now I’m running an eLearning project for another hospital—on the same system, with more travel, and even less time to completion. I’m doing it my way — in the weeks to follow I’m going to share guerrilla process with you, along with step-by-step examples and direction.

I want to clarify, refine, and build a case study for this process — so your comments are appreciated. Next time—a comparison of old school/new school processes, a look at simultaneous task analysis and capture with Captivate, and how to use your tracking spreadsheet to ward off evil spirits.

Cheers!

@jwillensky

A few months ago we were lucky enough to have Saasu, a leader in online accounting software make the move to online learning via Litmos. We asked their marketing exec a few questions about their search for the ideal learning management system and here’s what they had to say:


Which industry does your organisation operate in?
Saasu makes online accounting easy for business owners and their accountants. Essentially, we’re a SaaS provider (hence the name), and our product is used by businesses across all industries. In light of this, our LMS had to be easy for anyone to use – regardless of their technical expertise.

How did you find out about Litmos?
We researched several learning management systems and stumbled across Litmos as part of that process. Not only that, but half the world seems to be following your ‘happy blogger‘ on Twitter, so you must be doing something well!

What were you using to manage learning prior to Litmos?
To be honest, we hadn’t attempted anything like Litmos before – we didn’t realise it could be so easy! Usually our training system simply consisted of a series of online webinars or on-site meetings. Both were time-consuming, sometimes inefficient and didn’t really let us accurately assess an individual’s learning.

As a result, this is the first time we’ve run a training programme in this way, and it’s definitely making for a richer learning experience.

Why did you choose Litmos as your learning management system?
Litmos is straightforward to use and gives our training team plenty of control. It also eliminates tedious admin work such as marking tests and chasing up clients to re-sit these. Oh, and it’s cost effective (which is always a bonus)!

Another important consideration was that we’ve got a great partnership with the team at Acclipse (in New Zealand) who we run a lot of training for Accounting Partners through, so it was really important the system we chose to work with was simple for anyone to set up, as we knew communicating complicated ideas from our office in Sydney wouldn’t be easy.

How has Litmos improved the way that you manage learning within your organisation? i.e. the benefits now and in the future
We use Litmos alongside our original training webinars to make sure our customers have really taken on the message. It’s great, because if they can’t make the webinar, we have a presentation in Litmos ready and waiting for them. In fact, our very first presentation to clients and staff makes it clear that webinar attendance is completely optional, and that their Litmos results are what we’ll be monitoring.

Although we mainly use Litmos for educating customers, it’s also the perfect tool for training Saasu and Acclipse staff (we have a lot, and they’re all over Australia and New Zealand), as we can track who’s making progress, and keeping up to date.

Now that our system is set up – the hard work is done! Of course we’re always tweaking the content and adding new sections, but doing this is a breeze.

- Thanks Saasu!
@RichChetwynd

Telnet, New Zealand’s largest privately owned outsource call centre, is using Litmos, an online training tool/system to train its call centre agents. Online training, as opposed to paper learning, is invaluable in that it allows staff training to be ongoing. Online training modules are updated regularly and eliminate the necessity for endless paper printouts which can be lost or discarded. Telnet’s Staff Trainer Diane says, ‘Litmos is easy to use, requires no special training, is not hard to understand and ‘looks familiar’. Agents can find their way around Litmos in less than an hour, and it is easier to use than many other e learning applications. The most important features of Litmos are its reporting and assessment functions. Diane explains that when dealing with paper learning, work must be marked which is time consuming and is ultimately hard to measure. Comparatively, once an agent has completed a Litmos training test, an email is automatically sent to the trainer for assessment. The trainer then has an immediate record of who has completed the test successfully. Needless to say, this feature sits nicely with Telnet’s managing director , who works on the premise that ‘what’s measured gets done”.

With Litmos online training systems there is no ‘downtime’ a problem which is associated with classroom training. Agents now enjoy learning. Those who previously read magazines or newspapers to fill in quiet periods are now keen to keep testing themselves, or updating their product knowledge using Litmos training modules which improves productivity.

With readily available, up to date training modules it is easy for agents to find answers to any questions they may have. Agents have a strong sense of achievement in completing a training module, which has the effect of boosting their self esteem, and promoting a confident workplace. Diane says that ‘training has turned into something that does happen’ and adds ‘we don’t have to plan it and then postpone it which is what used to happen with classroom training’. With all training being carried out online, staff training is extremely easy and efficient. ‘Litmos turns training into enjoyable experience- agents actually want to use it’ reports Diane.

And, client satisfaction has improved with the introduction of easy to use Litmos training programmes. With the flexibility that Litmos provides, Training manager Diane is able to update a client’s programme, or get reports, at any time with a minimum of fuss. Using Litmos training systems has to be a win/win situation for both Telnet and the client.