Capability Matrices: Functionality Replacement

The second way I have used a capability matrix is to make decisions regarding application replacement.

In this instance, management was investigating getting rid of our staff LMS.
By itself, I don’t have a problem with that.
However, they were looking to do it in a very tight timeframe – as in, not renewing the contract that expires in less than a year.

I used this particular capability matrix to show the following:

• What we have and what each application does (most of them are content libraries containing pre-built tutorials)
• What functionality we currently lose if we just stopped using that application.
• Our current options (ie – what we have in-house that doesn’t require us to purchase anything) for replacement
  • Including who “owns” that option

This matrix quickly showed management the amount of work that would be required to make the transition.

Our current Compliance program is very dependent upon our LMS.

We can later use this same matrix to help guide purchasing future content libraries and LMSs.
———————-
So Wendy, why did you put the content libraries and the LMS together?  They are different things!

Not to management.  They just see “learning”.

Showing these things together helps show them the difference between the types of systems.

————————-
Setup

Rows – The content library / CMS / LMS currently in our environment

• Again – this is the stuff we are absolutely certain about.
• There are many other LMSs and content libraries in our environment through individual schools and departments.  These change frequently and I’m currently not in a position to do an inventory.  Remember, I am doing most of this in addition to my current job.  And we are starting to hit the busy season for higher ed IT.

Columns – Requirements

•  For this one, I pulled the requirements we used for the LMS portion of the Talent Management source selection.  I then took them to a higher-level since management doesn’t need to see the technical details.
• I also added some newer requirements – for when we decide to actually replace the LMS functionality.  Especially since there are new standards in our world (xAPI and CMI-5) that we will need to accommodate in the next iteration of our ecosystem.
• Finally – since our solutions tend to have content attached to them, I wanted to outline what content was in the libraries.

The link below is an Excel version of the capability matrix for the LMSs  / content libraries in the environment.

Capability Matrix: Learning Ecosystem / LMS