Brent Colescott

Leading Innovation in Learning

Learning Operations 101

Learning Operations 101

“It depends.”  If you know a Project Manager or anyone in a Consulting role, that’s usually the beginning of any answer you’ll get after asking a question.  Why?  There are probably a ton of variables that could alter the answer.  Lately I’ve been fielding a notable increase in questions about “How many Administrators do I need?” or “What is your suggested organizational make-up for a Learning Department?”  Well, the answer of course is “It depends.”  It depends on lots of variables that are unique to every organization and can vary based on available resources.  I’ll try to tackle some of the general questions through some broad-based descriptions below. 

The Learning Team

This is a foundational piece that affects many of the structural and operational decisions needed to run a Learning Program.  So, who leads your learning team?  A Chief Learning Officer (CLO), Vice President of HR, a Vice President of Learning, a Director of Learning or is it a Manager of Learning?  This is where the phrase “It Depends” comes into play.  The level of seniority assigned to a Learning Program and Team to lead it speaks volumes about what other resources will be made available to the learning function.  In general there is usually an Executive in the HR realm that supervises a Director of Learning.  The teams below a Director level leader can vary as well from lean to abundantly resourced.  Again, this will impact how much a particular role may cover functionally.

Your Structure

Centralized or Decentralized?  Does learning in your organization funnel through a single point of decision or is it allowed to function by department, location or division?  The answer to this will play a significant role in how Administrators function in their roles.  This is also a secondary impact on the composition of the Learning Team Leadership.  Organizations that function with a Chief Learning Officer tend to be centralized as a result.  A CLO executes a strategy or decisions from a central hub and spoke model.  Now, of course this is one of many ways that it can be done – as I said, it all depends. 

Decentralized structures of Learning tend to exist due to strong Business Unit Management or locational variables.  This depends on the level of oversight and autonomy both from a leadership and technology perspective.  Organizations can allow autonomy for Business Units to decide what content they purchase for their needs while operating within the same Learning Management System (LMS).  Inversely, Business Units can sometimes operate their own LMS and populate with their own proprietary or purchased content.

The Administrator Role

Building on the previous two examples, the Administrator role is impacted by Leadership and Structure.  Functional outputs or expectations for the role should be determined before discussing levels of Administration ability.  The Administrator holds “The Keys” to the system so it’s important to understand who will occupy this role.  Like any good plan on paper, make sure you have a back-up.  There should be at least two top level Administrators if at all possible.  This allows for coverage and redundancy in the event of someone being out or worse, leaving their role. 

When it comes to “The Keys” you need to consider levels and types of access when dolling out Administration privileges.  Start out as conservative and restricted as possible initially to ensure your system configuration and data are stable.  As people become more familiar with the system and requests  begin to stack up, teams will have a better idea as to how much to expect from the role and how many people will need to support it. 

At this point it will also become apparent as to whether a centralized Administration function needs to be maintained or if a distributed, but limited Administrator role can support the organization.  The distributed Administrator role often focuses on high volume, repetitive needs from the various business units.  This ensures two things – limited access prescribed for the need as well as constant use of the skills.  The most dangerous position one can put an organization is granting significant Administrative access to a person who only uses it in limited instances.  This example is how you’ll have someone “accidently” assign a single course to an entire organization when it was only intended for a group of 10.  Seen it. 

Reporting

Reporting can fall under the Administration role, but there are more than enough use cases where I have seen a dedicated Report Administrator role or a Manager of Learning or some other variation.  If the volume of daily activity to maintain the system is high, it is unlikely that Reports will get done on time or will be accurate.  The Reporting role or function can be assigned to someone with a data skillset that isn’t a daily Admin, but focuses more on the reports and the data points requested from the organization.  

Odds and Ends

There are a few other items that will fall under the “Grab Bag” or Administrative duties but it is important to understand expectations for their priority. 

User and System Support

With any technology spread across a large and diverse user base there are bound to be technical issues.  If I had a dollar for every “Pop-Up Blocker” or “Java” issue that was resolved during my career, let’s just say I would be on a beach somewhere now.  Beyond the standard fare, there’s nothing more disheartening than to receive a call from someone who spent the time to complete a compliance or mandated course to not have it post their completion for one reason or another.  This is where User Support needs to be clarified for the Administrator role.  I would strongly urge a FAQ or Online Self-Support initiative for “Level 1” type issues.  Administrators must be reserved for issues that truly require escalation, including to the vendor. 

Transcript Expectations

Depending upon the organization, content or certifications that result from training, timelines for posting a completion may need to be expedited.  Essentially a customer service type expectation, but when it comes to prioritizing Administrative Duties it is important to understand the variables that may dictate a certain turn-around for a course to be listed on a transcript.  For instance, the certification group NASBA that oversees accountant’s professional development requires the recording of training into a transcript within 2 weeks of completion. 

Content Support

The last area I’ll touch on for now is the softer side of support – content questions.  Due to the nature of the role it is not unheard of to have people call into the Administrators for suggestions regarding content; i.e. Curriculums.  While not their role or place, Administrators are often distracted as employees will default to contacting them for advice on pre-requisites or program tracks for content.  Again, this is an area where clarity needs to be made in FAQ’s or other communication as to the appropriate content owners who can assist or advise on which path(s) to take.

Governance

I’ve tried to hit the major components of what goes into the functional requirements of a Learning System Administrator.   The one thing that could potentially tie this all together and align the various components of “it depends” is developing overall Governance for your Learning Program.  Establishing a Governance Council or Learning Council focused on establishing role expectations and parameters will go along way towards everyone’s sanity.  This considers the structure and functions performed by the system Administrators as well as provides “cover” for when a request may be made that could negatively impact the system integrity or data.  Good Governance assures people, process and technology work as efficiently as possible.

At this point I think it’s safe to say there isn’t “one way” that’s best for all.  There are many ways to go about setting up the Operations of a Learning Program, but only you and your organization will know what works best based on the variables.  There are volumes of research on how to go about establishing and running a Learning Program.  With all things, begin with the end in mind.  What business problems are your trying to solve and how will the organization perceive your ability to help solve those problems.  The Administrator role is an essential lynch pin in keeping the whole process running.  There are dangers of burnout if not properly managed as well as system/data corruption if too many have access.  Balance what you can within your environment to ensure Happy Users and Administrators.  Both will thank you for the support.