Enterprise LMS Replacement & Governance Design
Note: This is a simplified version of an existing case study to enable faster skimming of content. For a full narrative, please read the original here.
Executive Summary
Led the enterprise replacement of Elekta’s legacy Learning Management System by reframing the initiative as a governance, compliance, and scalability challenge. Designed cross-functional decision structures, aligned regulatory and operational requirements, and delivered a lower-cost, higher-capability learning platform with a sustainable operating model.
Context
Company: Elekta
Industry: Global medical devices
Timing: During COVID
Function: Education & Training
Role: Manager, Learning Infrastructure & Governance
Stakeholders: HR, IT, Regulatory/Quality, Procurement, global business leaders
Elekta’s training systems supported field engineers, clinical teams, and internal employees who relied on consistent, compliant learning experiences. COVID disrupted operations globally, increasing reliance on digital learning while simultaneously reducing organizational capacity and tolerance for disruption.
The Strategic Problem
The organization did not have a tooling problem. It had a platform governance and scalability problem.
Key constraints included:
A legacy LMS with rising cost and declining flexibility
Platform capabilities misaligned with current and future learning needs
Fragmented ownership across HR, IT, and Regulatory.
No unified framework for evaluating risk, cost, compliance, and scalability
Lack of functionality caused teams to abandon and replace legacy LMS with other tools
At an executive level, the question was:
How do we replace a mission-critical enterprise platform without increasing regulatory risk, introducing operational instability, or creating long-term maintenance debt?
Objectives
Success was defined explicitly before any vendor decisions were made:
Continuity: Preserve uninterrupted access to regulated training
Compliance: Maintain validation, documentation, and audit readiness
Scalability: Support global growth and evolving training models
Cost: Reduce long-term licensing and operational spend
Governance: Establish clear ownership, decision rights, and change control
Durability: Implement an operating model that would scale beyond the initial migration
Strategy & Execution
1. Reframed the LMS as an Enterprise System, Not a Learning Tool
Rather than treating the LMS as a functional E&T or HR application, I positioned it as:
A regulated enterprise system
A compliance dependency
A long-term cost and risk surface
An infrastructure layer requiring formal governance
This reframing aligned executive stakeholders and shifted the conversation from feature preference to system design.
2. Designed Cross-Functional Governance and Decision Structure
I established a governance model that included:
HR / Learning leadership
IT
Regulatory and quality stakeholders
Procurement
Key outcomes of the governance model:
Defined ownership and escalation paths
Agreed-upon decision criteria
Centralized risk assessment
Reduced rework and conflicting priorities
The goal was not consensus. It was clarity.
3. Built a Unified Evaluation Framework
To avoid fragmented or politically driven decisions, I consolidated requirements into a single evaluation framework balancing:
Regulatory and validation requirements
Global scalability and localization needs
Administrative effort and system maintainability
Integration considerations where appropriate
Cost structure and contract flexibility
Usability and adoption risk
This framework enabled objective comparison and defensible decision-making.
4. Led Platform Replacement With a Defined Operating Model
Beyond platform selection, I focused on how the system would be run:
Defined post-implementation ownership and responsibilities
Established governance for configuration, change requests, and updates
Ensured documentation and validation standards were embedded, not retrofitted
The platform was implemented as part of a system, not as a standalone solution.
Results
Successfully replaced the legacy LMS without disrupting regulated training
Reduced learning platform and associated licensing costs by approximately $1M over three years
Improved system flexibility, scalability, and administrative efficiency
Established governance practices that reduced future platform risk and decision friction
Strategic Impact
Learning infrastructure shifted from a fragile dependency to a governed enterprise system
Platform decisions became repeatable and defensible rather than ad hoc
Regulatory and operational risk was reduced, not redistributed
The organization gained a scalable foundation for future learning initiatives