Problems with platforms

A few days ago I was chatting to a client who had problems with platforms. Her new learning platform was taking time to bed in (to put it politely) and there were all sorts of compatibility issues with her enterprise-wide platform. To make matters worse, the (so-called) learning platform had virtually no learning evaluation capability.

While welcoming applications of digital technology to address her learning evaluation needs, this client definitely didn’t want to go down the route of installing yet another platform, creating a scenario where there could be a series of at least four: enterprise-wide – HR – learning – evaluation. I don’t blame her.

Why spend tens of thousands of pounds on yet another “bespoke solution” that is really just a generic platform with a bit of branding and limited interoperability? Unless the object is to give employees new challenges in coping with unfamiliar software systems!

Alasdair Rutherford and I addressed this question recently in our latest learning evaluation paper, recommending – among other things – genuinely bespoke solutions rather than generic (and expensive) software systems. Read Digital Technology Applications.

Has anyone else had similar problems?