We’ve compiled a list of common themes we encounter that don’t necessarily require a consultant to address and aren’t limited to a specific project or engagement. They are habits and practices that will help you get the most out of your technology systems.
If you do choose to work with a consultant, proactively thinking about all of these items will help you articulate what you want to accomplish and maximize the return on your technology investment. If you don’t choose to work with a consultant, the exact same benefits still apply!
- Articulate Your Goals
- Be Organized
- Know Your Process
- Value Flexibility
- Own Your System
Articulate Your Goals
Technology alone won’t improve our work, but the ways in which we leverage technology to achieve our goals can make our work more enjoyable and effective. The key is to stay focused on the outcomes and resist the temptation to build/add/automate just because it seems like an easy way to solve a short term problem. Let’s look at some specific examples:
“We’d like to implement Salesforce and become a data-driven organization.”
Switching to Salesforce might be a great goal for your organization, but it doesn’t identify any specific objectives you’d like to accomplish by taking on a big, challenging, time-consuming and expensive project. Imagine you instantly received a Salesforce org with all your data loaded and ready to roll. What are you going to do that you couldn’t do before, and how (specifically) will this change the way you approach your work?
“We have a long [sales/donor cultivation] cycle with many touchpoints, and would like to better understand how these multiple points of engagement influence a [sale/donation]. We track various interactions in our database but don’t have a strategic approach for using this data or connecting engagement metrics to revenue. We know this isn’t a simple change, but believe that better understanding this connection will help focus our marketing efforts and be worthwhile.”
This is a great reason to invest in a technology project (and just happens to be the type of work we specialize in)! In this example, there’s the recognition that a specific objective (more focused marketing and development) can be realized through connecting data that’s currently disparate.
Be Organized
Your organization will struggle to effectively solve problems if you haven’t identified the root causes of what is wrong. A formalized way to capture pain points and feedback is a simple and hugely powerful framework for any kind of improvements. There are many tools (free and paid) that can be used for this. Key features include:
- Who - the person or people impacted
- What - focus on the problem not necessarily the solution
- Why - the context around this request
- Status - backlog, in progress, done, etc
- Other fields - priority, department, level of effort, etc
Using a spreadsheet is the simplest way to organize this information, filter out items that have been deferred or completed, and track your progress. At Pedal Lucid, we’re fans of visualizing this process though a Kanban board that lets you track the progress of specific items. Asana, Trello, Airtable, Smartsheet, Jira, or a dedicated Salesforce object are just a few of the many tools that can handle this.
Three tools (L to R, Asana, Jira, Trello), one visual way of approaching work
Add items that come up to your backlog and periodically take the time to review, reprioritize, and update their status. This becomes both a to-do list and a record of what you’ve accomplished. There are many formalized methodologies you can apply to this approach, but the key is to have something in place that you will use consistently and can gradually improve on.
Know Your Process (or admit it needs work)
Starting with the foundation of a good process is critical to making effective use of technology.
A good third party will be able to identify and push back on processes that exist “because that’s the way things are done.” It’s not uncommon to discover that the reasons behind a complicated process unique to your organization are the result of something no longer applicable or which may no longer be relevant when you reframe your goals.
Taking internal ownership of your processes means that someone is responsible for seeing them operate successfully and knows where to turn for any questions (this might be an individual and/or written documentation). Being able to speak to the inputs you have, results you’d like to achieve, and identify which processes seem to be working well and which need some external help is key.
The process outlined below isn’t especially unusual for a small nonprofit, but still uses 16 decision points and 10 different email templates to acknowledge different kinds of gifts! While this style of flowchart isn’t generally our preferred format (we like UPN’s simplicity), it worked well for mapping out specific criteria with a client for one automated action (thank you’s) that sits within a larger process.
Lots of things to consider just for sending email acknowledgements. Note that this document is focused on the outcomes based on inputs, NOT “how to send an acknowledgement” for a user
Going through this exercise doesn’t require a consultant and might illuminate internal differences of opinion, inconsistent application, or a recognition that you can simplify without detracting from your goals. Documentation is a standalone topic for another post, but the Elements (UPN) link above is a great starting point and this video is a nice deeper dive.
Whether you’re training a new staff member or working with a consultant, you should be able to articulate how your organization is supposed to function!
Value Flexibility
Automation is often a tradeoff between speed and agility. Investing time and effort to optimize a specific process for efficiency makes sense when you know that investment is going to stick around and be broadly useful. On the other hand, it can become a liability if the process changes or uncommon scenarios aren’t anticipated and result in undesired outcomes.
The same tends to hold true more generally for customizing systems and processes to your organization in particular. Being open to new ways of working and learning best established practices will generally free up your time and brain to focus on those things that can’t be adopted from someone else.
A process you flagged as a significant but non-urgent candidate for automation six months ago might, when revisited (you’re periodically reviewing your backlog, right?), merit a totally different approach in the context of other changes or new features made over that time. Approaching problems in a way that leaves your options open in the future is insurance against unexpected change.
Own Your System
The most crucial aspect of all! Ownership and governance encompass all of the above points, and are the secret sauce of the best-running organizations.
- Periodic reflection: what have we done, where are we headed, where do we want to go?
- Are there specific problems that need to be addressed?
- What proactive steps can be taken to set ourselves up for further success?
This might be a “center of excellence” in which leadership meets a few times a year to discuss these topics. It also looks like staff members taking responsibility for both processes and results of those processes. It looks like including end users in system discussions, and working to incorporate their needs and pain points into development and/or documentation.
A healthy technology ecosystem will evolve over time. Recognizing this and working with rather than against it is a mindset that will help you be successful.
Now that you know what we advocate...
Go ahead and get started, and give us a shout if you need some help—this stuff is hard!
If you’re feeling confident in these areas, even better! Our work will be most impactful when we have the tailwind of a well running org.
