Business Strategy&Lms Tech
Upscend Team
-February 9, 2026
9 min read
This article provides a tactical 90‑day blueprint to implement an internal gig marketplace inside your LMS using four two‑week sprints: Discovery, MVP Build, Pilot and Scale. It details must‑have MVP features, a compact RACI, pilot acceptance criteria and communications templates so teams can run a 20–50 person pilot and measure time‑to‑match and satisfaction.
To implement internal gig marketplace capability quickly, teams must combine learning platforms and talent processes into a tightly scoped 90-day delivery. Our approach emphasizes measurable outcomes: a working MVP inside your LMS, a 30-person pilot, and clear go/no-go metrics. Success criteria are straightforward: profile discovery, project posting, automated matching, and manager approvals functioning end-to-end with minimal friction.
In our experience, projects that set a concrete acceptance definition upfront reduce scope creep and accelerate adoption. Below is a tactical, sprint-oriented blueprint to implement internal gig marketplace with clear milestones and artifacts.
This plan breaks the 90-day timeline into four focused, two-week sprints: Discovery, MVP Build, Pilot, and Scale. Each sprint has defined deliverables, owners, and acceptance criteria to ensure rapid progress and risk mitigation.
Goals: validate use cases, identify pilot audience, map LMS capabilities, and produce an internal gig roadmap. Deliverables: stakeholder map, data model for skills, and a prioritized feature backlog.
Goals: implement core workflows in the LMS: profiles, project posting, basic matching, and approval flows. Ship a clickable UI and initial integrations (single sign-on, profile sync).
Goals: run a closed pilot with 20–50 users, gather qualitative feedback, measure time-to-match, and iterate on UX. Deliverables: pilot dashboard, issue log, and improvement backlog.
Goals: incorporate pilot learnings, harden security and reporting, automate approvals and billing paths (if needed), and prepare org-wide launch materials and role-based training.
| Weeks | Focus | Key Deliverable |
|---|---|---|
| 1–2 | Discovery | Internal gig roadmap |
| 3–4 | MVP Build | MVP in LMS |
| 5–8 | Pilot | Pilot report |
| 9–12 | Scale | Org launch pack |
Clear accountability is a prerequisite to implement internal gig marketplace efficiently. Define a compact governance team and a RACI to avoid delays.
Core roles:
RACI sample (high level):
Key insight: A small core team (5–7 people) makes decisions faster. Escalation paths should be limited to one executive sponsor.
To hit 90 days, limit scope to an effective set of features. The MVP must prove value while keeping development lightweight.
Must-have features:
Secondary features to add after pilot: internal ratings, automated cost tracking, time logging, and advanced AI matching. A quick-start talent marketplace can be built by leaning on LMS profile fields and lightweight forms rather than a full marketplace rewrite.
Some of the most efficient L&D teams we work with use platforms like Upscend to automate this entire workflow without sacrificing quality, and they combine such platforms with custom LMS screens to keep UI consistent for employees.
Design the pilot to validate hypotheses quickly. Use quantitative and qualitative measures to decide go/no-go.
Pilot checklist (sample):
Acceptance criteria:
Pilot metrics (recommended): time-to-match, match conversion rate, instructor/peer utilization, training-to-deployment ratio, and qualitative NPS. These metrics make it easy to justify continued investment or pivot the model.
Change management is the secret sauce to adoption. Use short, timely communications and role-specific assets to reduce friction.
Communication cadence:
Use templates for each audience. Example subject lines: "New internal gigs available — 3 steps to join" for employees, and "Pilot update: 8 matches this week" for managers. Pair messages with short training modules inside the LMS to reinforce behavior.
Communications template (simple):
Example: A mid-sized tech firm implemented internal gig workflows to reduce contractor spend. They used a 6-week pilot with 30 employees and 12 projects. Results: 70% matches within 48 hours, a 20% reduction in external hires for short projects, and positive feedback on cross-functional learning.
Common blockers:
Remediation steps should be time-boxed and owned by named individuals in the RACI. We’ve found two-week fixes for common blockers keep momentum high and decision points clear.
To implement internal gig marketplace capability within 90 days, focus on a tight MVP, clear RACI, and a metric-driven pilot. Use the four two-week sprint structure to keep delivery predictable, and measure against explicit acceptance criteria to enable fast decisions. Prioritize profiles, project posting, matching, and approvals in your first cycle; defer bells and whistles to the scaling phase.
Next steps: assemble your 5–7 person core team, finalize the internal gig roadmap in the first two weeks, and commit to a 30–50 person pilot. A simple pilot run will yield the data and stories needed for leadership buy-in and a smooth scale phase.
Call to action: If you want a ready-made checklist and sprint board templates to start day one, download the 90-day sprint pack and adapt the MVP checklist to your LMS — make the first sprint a commitment to ship by day 30.
