Selecting the right supplier for your learning management system (LMS) is critical to your success. When you've narrowed down the possibilities, getting the opinion of someone who's worked with your short list of suppliers can be invaluable. This is not hard—suppliers typically will provide contact information for references with their happiest customers.

Here are nine questions to ask a supplier's current clients to help you to make the best decision for your organization's learning needs:

• What lessons did you learn during the implementation process?

• What worked well?

• What would you do differently?

• Were there any unanticipated issues that you have had to deal with?

• If you could change one thing about your system, what would it be?

• Were there benefits to the system you didn't anticipate?

• How long did you allow for implementation, and was that time sufficient?

• What tasks during implementation did you underestimate?

• Why did you select the supplier?

These tips were adopted from the July 2012 Infoline, "Selecting and Implementing a Learning Management System" by Stacy Lindenberg, available at www.astd.org/infoline.