Imagine an organization that has just signed on a new learning management system (LMS), ready and excited to roll it out. But soon they discover one of their critical administrative workflows isn’t possible because of a bug. In haste, a ticket is submitted to the vendor, and then they wait.

And wait…

Weeks later, the “agile” training operation turns out to be anything but. Sessions stall, spreadsheets return and everyone quietly wonders if this new “solution” solved anything at all.

It’s a familiar story in learning operations. Sometimes, the most agile thing we can do is stop waiting for someone else’s sprint.

Why “Agile” Thinking Often Backfires in L&D

As learning leaders, we love to talk about agility — being flexible, fast and iterative. But when it comes to technology, we tend to chase the perfect tool. We want the industry standard, the one with every integration, dashboard and shiny feature imaginable. Ironically, that pursuit often leaves us standing still.

Most operational headaches aren’t solved by these massive, out-of-the-box platforms. They’re often solved by simple, minimum viable solutions built from the tools the organization already has. Most training teams don’t need another system; they need to more deeply understand the ones they already have.

The Hidden Cost of Blind Reliance

When we don’t own — or at least understand — the backend of our tools, we end up living with inefficiencies (or paying someone else to fix them). We wait on vendors. We adapt our processes to software limitations. We compromise the learner experience because, well, “that’s just how the system works.”

Even internal IT dependencies can slow the pace. Training priorities often fall behind customer-facing needs, which is understandable. But that’s also why training leaders can’t afford to sit back and wait.

If you don’t own your systems, they’ll own your schedule.

Owning and understanding your tools means owning your agility. The less we rely on others to innovate, the faster our training operations can evolve.

How to Make Learning Technology Work for You

So, where do we start? How do we make our tools adapt to us instead of the other way around?

• Step 1: Learn what your systems can really do.
  • Take time to explore. Attend vendor training. Click through the admin panel. What features haven’t you used yet? Half of what you need is probably already there.
• Step 2: Map your needs to your capabilities.
  • List the tasks that eat up your time: scheduling, attendance, surveys, reporting, etc. Which ones could be automated or simplified?
• Step 3: Customize for recurring, high-impact needs.
  • Start small. Automate reminder emails. Link attendance spreadsheets to completion records. You don’t need to reinvent the wheel; just solve one problem at a time.

From here, APIs are the next frontier as far as customizing and connecting training processes to other systems (and can help future-proof and scale our systems). But start with what you already know.

A Homegrown Win

Many L&D teams are bogged down by manual processes: class scheduling, room booking, attendance tracking, surveys and reports. The list goes on.

Here’s an example: By starting with a simple spreadsheet for calendaring, one organization watched that basic file evolve into a homegrown scheduling and reporting system that handled registrations, feedback, version history, grading and more. And the best part, they built it entirely with tools they already had, like Outlook, Excel, Power Automate and Airtable.

The result was hours of time back each week, fewer errors and a clearer view of what mattered most. And because they built it themselves, they could also fix it themselves. No tickets required.

Key Questions to Build Scalable Learning Systems

Systems thinking in training is about zooming out and asking a few key questions. Here are a few examples:

• “How can I make this repeatable?”
• “How does it connect to everything else?”
• “If I had to do these 100 more times, how would I make it easier?”

Those small questions lead to building scalable systems. Much like a patchwork quilt, each small automation or workflow might seem minor on its own, but together they form something cohesive, efficient and uniquely suited to your organization.

Busting the “We’re Not Technical” Myth

We don’t need to be engineers to think like one. If you can send a calendar invite or create a survey, you can automate one.

Start with the small stuff: email reminders, attendance confirmations, report updates, automating attendance sign-ins and dashboard refreshes. These micro-efficiencies add up like compound interest. Even saving 45 minutes a week adds up to nearly a full week of reclaimed time each year.

Between online tutorials, discussion boards and help from your network, there’s no shortage of ways to learn a few new tricks.

Be the Architect, Not the Operator

The biggest operational wins in L&D don’t come from buying better tools. They come from mastering the ones you already have. Here’s the shift: stop adapting to your tools. Build, tinker and iterate until they adapt to you.

The future of training operations doesn’t belong to those waiting for vendor updates; it belongs to those who adapt their tools to their needs!