eMigration - How to Tackle Learning Transformation Once and For All
Thanks to continual technological advancements, eMigration is a viable reality for more organizations than ever before, even during the recent economic downturn. Confronted by globalization and the imperative for faster times to market across new and increasingly mobile delivery mediums, eMigration is delivering corporations a cost-effective, comprehensive, and, best of all, long-term solution to these relentless challenges.
eMigration is the transformation of learning content from paper-based and instructor-led formats to online, interactive, globally accessible, and highly reusable formats − at significantly reduced costs. But more than that, it includes building a business case for an organization’s entire learning structure. Although organizations’ training budgets are tight and investment strategies are increasingly focused on cost control, training still remains a critical requirement if organizations are to profit in the current competitive climate.
This article explains how organizations can take advantage of the current recession to strategically utilize eMigration as a viable solution for “doing far more with less.”
eMigration offers organizations a proven and cost-effective method to build skills through training and stay on top of their business.
The benefits are too considerable to overlook, including:
- compelling cost efficiencies
- massive scalability and reusability of learning
- 24x7 access to learning for a distributed workforce
...all at a significantly faster time-to-market.
Contrary to popular belief, practically any learning experience can be delivered electronically, including many soft skills. The goal of eMigration is not to simply “convert” old classroom content into e-Learning but is to identify a desired end-state, prioritize from easy to difficult, engage the learner, and extinguish the obsolete formats as the transformation progresses in order to realize maximum gains in efficiency and productivity.
The eMigration process is inherently “strategic” because moving from traditional to contemporary formats requires thorough planning and commitment to staying on track in the midst of a dynamic industry environment. If executed well, eMigration elevates a Learning and Development (L&D) department from a tactical corporate resource to a strategic partner with a business impact for any organization.
Align, Then Measure
It is a fundamental truth that “what gets measured gets managed.” But, how does an organization measure the value of eMigration? The organization’s unique goals drive how progress is measured. To be successful, eMigration must be closely aligned with organizational goals and strategies.
Cost Efficiency
If a top organizational goal is cost efficiency, eMigration metrics can be structured and measured to prove extreme cost effectiveness. For example, an e-learning course that costs $10,000 to build, but reaches 10,000 people, is only $1 per person. An instructor-led classroom training course, even on-site, can easily run $500 per person per day, including direct costs like design, development, printing, and facilitation, as well as indirect costs such as time away from the job. A simple calculation reveals that a 60% reduction in overall costs of design, development, and delivery can be achieved over a span of three years.
Agility and Time-to-Market
If a key organizational driver is agility, then the overall goal of eMigration may be increased velocity. eMigration success can be measured using “time-to-market” metrics. Developing a classroom-based course, piloting, registering participants, and rolling it out to multiple locations can take months, even a year or more. The same process with online content can be developed in as little as six to eight weeks to build, test, upload, and cascade to the entire audience. You can easily reduce the average L&D delivery time-to-market from six months to three months with the strategic planning and execution of an eMigration program.
Productivity
For some organizations, the priority is not direct cost or speed, but the smart and responsible use of resources. The success of eMigration can be assessed by measuring the direct impact on productivity. For instance, a single L&D staff person has about 2,000 hours per year to create as much value for the organization as possible. If this person is building or managing a three-day classroom course, it can easily take six months to create the content, pilot it, and train perhaps 200 people. The same L&D staff member could spend those 1,000 hours creating a six-hour e-Learning course with the same content, and roll it out to 20,000 people.
The Proof is in the Output
The success metrics of an eMigration strategy aside, the resulting electronic learning materials have to be effective. Employing industry standards as well as proprietary processes and technologies is a given, but the key to ensuring engaging courses that effectively transfer knowledge and improve performance is client collaboration and commitment. This starts from day one with a state-of-the-art assessment using strategic metrics to analyze short-term and long-term L&D needs. This comprehensive analysis is the critical input into a thorough eMigration strategy, which includes ongoing content management requirements.
The other critical component for eMigration success is a multiple output strategy. To significantly reduce development and deployment time, content should always be built in reusable formats so that it can be quickly and easily redeployed into interactive e-Learning platforms − from knowledge portals, wikis, smart phones, and hand-held computing devices to Electronic Performance Support Systems (EPSS).
A Strategy to Get from Here to There
“eMigration offers a set of strategies and implementation tools for use beyond just the ROI model for a single procurement of an e-learning course to address a single issue,” said David Patterson at Learning Light. “eMigration is a coherent strategy for a business seeking to move their overall L&D forward. It provides tools for a decision-making framework and for measuring the impact, giving L&D professionals the ammunition they require to demonstrate a true ‘more for less’ model.”
Learning is undoubtedly undergoing a transformation ... and eMigration is confronting it head-on.
Mike Stacy, Aptara
For More Information: http://www.aptaracorp.com/index.php?/solutions/eMigration.html
Mike Stacy is Aptara’s Senior Vice President of Learning & Performance Solutions
You can reach him at:
Mike.Stacy@aptaracorp.com
Winner of three 2009 Brandon Hall Awards, Aptara has been instrumental in helping several Fortune 500 organizations revolutionize their training strategy via eMigration. Using a combination of strategic consulting, instructional design, graphic design, programming expertise, plus knowledge enhancement and creation tools, traditional learning formats were transformed to produce focused, engaging, and incisive online learning tools and methods.
