(and why most organisations get it wrong)
Choosing a learning platform feels like progress
There’s a contract to sign, a budget to commit, and something concrete to point to. In a world that rewards visible action, that feeling of momentum is genuinely appealing.
But in my experience, the platform decision is one of the most commonly mishandled steps in any learning project. Not because organisations choose badly. Because they choose too early, for the wrong reasons, without asking the right questions first.
Here’s what I’ve learned after nearly four decades delivering digital learning for some of the world’s biggest brands and most ambitious start-ups.
The platform is rarely the problem
When a learning programme underperforms, the platform usually gets the blame.
Engagement is low. Completion rates are disappointing. People aren’t logging in the way they were supposed to. And somewhere in that conversation, someone suggests that a better platform might fix it.
It might. But in most cases I’ve seen, the platform isn’t the problem.
The problem is the order in which decisions were made.
The platform was chosen before the audience was properly understood. Before the subject matter was properly explored. Before anyone had asked a clear enough question about what success would actually look like.
When the foundations are unclear, no platform will save you. When the foundations are solid, almost any decent platform will do the job.
Platform agnostic means genuinely agnostic
I am completely platform agnostic.
That means I recommend the platform that suits the client. Not the one I prefer personally. Not the one that offers me a referral fee. Not the one I’ve always used.
Your needs matter more than my preferences. That’s not a noble stance. It’s just the only honest way to operate as a consultant.
Most credible learning platforms have broadly similar features and functions. The differences between them are often smaller than the sales pitches suggest. What separates a good platform relationship from a bad one is rarely the software.
It’s the company behind it.
The company behind the platform matters as much as the platform itself
This is a point I make consistently, and it’s one that often catches clients off guard.
A learning platform is a long-term relationship. The team you’re working with, the support you receive, the responsiveness when things go wrong, and the genuine interest in your success matter enormously over a three-year partnership.
Many of the bigger platforms are primarily focused on their competition. New features, new integrations, new announcements. The existing client base becomes just another set of licences to be renewed rather than a relationship to be invested in.
When evaluating platforms, I always encourage clients to ask hard questions about post-sale support. Who will you be talking to six months after signing? What does the onboarding process look like? How do they handle problems?
The answers tell you more than any feature comparison.
Why three years is the minimum commitment
An learning platform investment should be planned for a minimum of three years.
This isn’t just a commercial reality, although most credible providers will ask for at least this commitment. It’s a practical one.
A platform takes time to bed in. Learners need time to feel comfortable and navigate it with confidence. Administrators need time to learn it properly. And you need enough time and enough data to understand what’s working and what isn’t.
Short-term platform thinking produces short-term results. Constant switching disrupts learners, wastes administrative effort, and makes meaningful measurement almost impossible.
Commit properly. Give it time to prove itself. And build in a structured review at the three-year mark.
That review, incidentally, is exactly what my Learning Audit is designed to support. A proper look at what’s working, what isn’t, and whether the platform is still the right fit for where the business is heading for the next three years.
You don’t always need a sophisticated platform
Here’s something I tell clients that occasionally surprises them.
Sometimes the right platform is a simple one.
A well-structured set of resources. A curated collection of short videos. A clean microsite with clear signposting. Something that takes seconds to access and requires no training to navigate.
The right platform is the one that fits your learners and your current stage of development. Not the most impressive one on the market.
If a platform needs a user guide to explain how to use it, that’s a signal worth paying attention to. Good platforms are intuitive. A few clicks and you’re learning. Friction at the point of access is one of the most reliable ways to reduce engagement before any content has even loaded.
Protect your content with industry standards
One practical point that saves significant pain later.
If your learning content is built using industry standards like SCORM or xAPI, it can be transferred between platforms without starting from scratch.
SCORM (Sharable Content Object Reference Model) and xAPI are the two most widely used content standards in digital learning. They ensure your content communicates properly with your platform and, crucially, that you’re not permanently locked in to a single provider.
Good content built to the right standards belongs to you. Any reputable developer or content partner should be building to these standards as a matter of course.
Measurement should be planned before delivery, not after it
The most common measurement mistake I see is treating it as something to think about once the learning is live.
By then, some of your best opportunities to collect useful data have already passed.
The platform you choose determines what data you can collect. The way you launch learning affects who engages and how. The support you put in place shapes whether people actually use what you’ve built.
I ask clients the same question at the start of every Discovery Workshop: how will we measure success?
The first answer is usually fairly general. Completion rates. Satisfaction scores. A general sense that things will improve.
Two hours later, once we’ve explored the business properly, I ask the same question again. The second answer is almost always more specific, more honest, and far more useful as a basis for a real measurement plan.
Ask twice. Measure once.
What good measurement actually looks like
The most useful learning metrics are rarely found inside the learning platform itself.
They live in the business. Sales figures. Customer satisfaction scores. Product return rates. Staff retention numbers. Compliance incident rates. Transformation targets.
I work with a number of brands that sell through retail as well as directly to customers online. For those clients, one of the most powerful learning metrics is a decrease in product returns. When retail staff properly understand what they’re selling and to whom, they match the right product to the right customer. That customer is satisfied. They keep it.
That’s learning creating measurable commercial value. Not through a completion rate. Through a business outcome.
And it’s measured not once, but at three specific points after delivery. Three months, six months, and twelve months. Each checkpoint tells you something different.
Three months tells you whether the learning landed. Six months tells you whether it stuck. Twelve months tells you whether it changed anything that genuinely mattered.
One snapshot is never enough. A pattern is what you can act on.
If you’re making platform decisions this year, or wondering whether your current learning investment is actually delivering what it should, I’m always happy to have a sensible conversation.
You can find out more about how I work, and book a chat, here: https://tidycal.com/aprendido
