Which LMS is the Best Choice?

This is the wrong question to ask, at least initially.

Let's assume that the leadership team who is asking this question already has good reasons for wanting to utilize a learning management system for their learning. I am a proponent of the use of learning management systems, but only, if done awesomely. Assuming the reasons for using a learning management system are good let's just briefly revisit a few:

1. The capacity for organization and replication of learning experiences on a digital platform.
2. The capacity for both asyncronous and syncronous learning both digitally mediated and in-person.
3. The ability to administer and manage learner progress and certification
4. To build something that is amazing, powerful, flexible, and that contributes to transformative learning.

There are other reasons too - feel free to add your own in response. Let's return to the correct question to ask and it is this:

Are we prepared as an organization to design, develop, administer, and evaluate learning experiences through a learning management system... in a way that is unique and valuable???

I would say that 9/10 times an organization moves into this realm they are ill-equipped to use LMS's in a way that is successful, transformative, and distinguishes their approach to training and formation. The reasons have to do with the unique skill sets that are required for Instructional Design Technology and/or Learner Experience Design.

It isn't enough to be bookish or a subject matter expert. It isn't enough to be an LMS or other platform/application administrator. It isn't enough to be trained in educational and learning theories. It isn't enough to know front-end web development - though essential for good design. It isn't enough to know ADDIE. It isn't enough to know how to develop curricula. It isn't enough to be good with Articulate or Camtasia or particular LMS's like Captivate or Canva.

Further, you can't get this education from a certificate or a degree - these can contribute to professionalization but they aren't a replacement for it.

My own thinking and experience is that first of all you need a team of people trained in all those things above. Don't expect one person to be able to do it all - they can't and the output will suffer. Good Learner Experience Design requires a team of professionals including access to developers or developers on the team.

But it also requires something else: people who have been iterating web-based learner experiences over a significant period of time. Having been in the culture and experience of learning management systems and their development cycle/processes is essential to understanding where we stand in the history of iteration and what is coming.

But, in addition to that experience and training, you must desire to produce awesome, attractive, and transformative learning, despite the challenges and history of web-based subpar learning design.

It also helps to have confronted challenges, limitations, and countless bugs, as it were, or iterated over and over again out of the clunky, user-unfriendly, ugly, uninspiring world of LMS's, having been unsatisfied and disappointed with the limitation and options of what you saw.

In short, you need someone obsessed with making what could otherwise be an awful implementation something integral and transformative to your organization. There has to be an openness to this among the leadership and there should be support for this and resources dedicated to this. An LMS administrator isn't enough. Please don't give this to IT.

If you are really committed then you can start talking about which LMS to choose. My own bias is towards open-source solutions. Sure, you can use proprietary authoring tools but the platform, if you want to make it your own and customize it fully, should be open-source.

If you just want to prop up some videos, go proprietary. But please don't just prop up videos.