The Cloud is our hero! #MMM Episode 3

So I tried out a new tool for Episode 3 of Monday Minute Movie (#MMM).  But who knew that once you were done, you couldn't go back and edit. oy. Plus I can't embed it, WHAT? There goes my viewership.....

So this month's #MMM is a bit over a minute, but is under 2 minutes! SO I will just call it a minute and you can just get over it.

This month's topic is an advertisement for the Ignite Session that I will be doing at the #13NTC!

Watch My Google Story called The Cloud is our Hero!


Cant Make it to #13NTC?
And a quick announcement. If you can't go to the Nonprofit Technology Conference hosted by NTEN, you should seriously consider the Online NTC! I was not able to attend the conference last year, but did attend online. It was a great experience, not as good as being there, but still great. I was able to catch the Keynote speakers, which ROCKED! Plus I picked a few good sessions to join.

To make the online NTC experience better though, I involved a bunch of co-workers. We all gathered in a room to watch sessions together that were cross functional. We were able to chat and apply to our work right away. We were brainstorming and building some camaraderie during the sessions.

So while one of the best parts of the NTC is the hallway conversations and the amazing people you meet, when you can't attend in person, the online NTC is still a good choice. Plus it is very reasonably priced, especially if you share it with others at your org in a room with a projector.

Anyway, register for the NTEN NTC online conference today! http://www.nten.org/ntc/online

Awesome Tech Planning Resource!

For the last two weeks I have rambled on about Tech Planning. I have thought about how to demystify the process. How to simplify it. 

The key was a shift from Strategic Tech Planning to Tactical Tech Planning!

Wait, What? Why would you not want strategic tech planning? What is up with Tactical?

Well let's put it this way. If your car has a flat tire and needs a new starter, do you need a strategic plan to fix the car? 

Well if your technology is in the early stages, it is like fixing your car. You have to get everything working correctly before you can think about the strategic parts. Doing an oil change, regular maintenance and thinking through upgrades is a bit silly when it has a flat and can't start.

The self serve training and resource for Technology Planning that I have been dreaming about for years has arrived. And it is from the trusted experts at Idealware! Yay! This resource is the perfect way for you and your organization to begin the journey toward a strategic technology plan by starting with a tactical one.

Idealware let me have a sneak peek at the training and associated resources, I cannot easily explain how AWESOME they are! When you combine the video with the downloadable action plans and templates, you have everything you need to get started. But even better, they don't throw it all at you at once. They purposely take you through a series of steps that are easy to digest and complete.

You might be saying to yourself, Self, I think this guy is whack or is getting paid to talk about this, but you would be wrong. Well maybe not about the whack part.  I am only talking about this training because I think it is a great tool! I have worked with Idealware on a volunteer basis in the past, but  I just really appreciate what they do.

So anyway, If you work at a small to mid size nonprofit, I would suggest going to Idealware and check out their Tactical Tech Planning today! http://tacticaltech.idealware.org/ 

Also a huge shout out to the Pierce Family Foundation for their support of this project! Awesome to see a foundation that really understands the importance of solid technology, operations and administration to support a nonprofit to meet it's mission!

Technology Strategy Follow up to #MMM Episode 2

So last week I posted a one minute video on creating a technology strategy.

I showed the basic steps of:

1. Listing your technology needs, projects and hopes in a spreadsheet
2. Add columns for Effort, Priority and Cost
3. Fill in columns with high, medium and low
4. Then look for the combination of effort, priority and cost that you are able to accomplish

Well your technology plan really can be that simple when you are just beginning. When your needs are centered around your infrastructure it is easy to manage. When these projects start to cross over into enterprise software, websites, social media or communications, it can get much more complicated.

Creating a technology plan that requires process or cultural changes, is much more complex. These will take some deliberate steps to build support, prepare staff, enable champions, document your business, understand operational goals and so much more.

So why did I try to make technology planning look so simple?

Because if you don't start with your infrastructure, the other stuff is useless. If you have an awesome website with bandwidth too slow to upload images to it, optimal external communication tools but no good way to share information internally or you have the perfect enterprise software running on computers too slow to run it, then the best technology plan is just a waste.

So your technology plan ALWAYS needs to start with the basics. Get the trains running on time, keep the lights on, start with a foundation to build on or whatever metaphor you want to use.

Later I will look at how you should begin to add in concepts like organizational readiness, mission impact, return on investment, benefit analysis and all of the other ways to make your technology more meaningful.  You have to find purposeful ways to shift your technology from a cost center to manage to a transformative method to meet your mission.

However, we have to find the balance in technology strategy.  Here is a great reminder with a quote from Allen Gunn in a great article on the Nonprofit Quarterly:

Remember That Technology Is Not a Strategy
According to Allen Gunn, executive director of Aspiration, a San Francisco-based nonprofit technology consulting organization, many organizations make the error of treating technology as a replacement for strategy: “In the same way they’d order up pizza delivery, some nonprofits think they can order up a piping hot enterprise technology strategy. We tell organizations to take a step back and think about your business processes first. Look at things from a process-centric way and not a tech-centric way.”

Be sure to go read the full article, it is fantastic. 

Technology Planning #MMM Episode 2

That's right! It is the last Monday of the Month and it is time for (drumroll .....)

Episode 2 of Minute Monday Movie #MMM!

This month I tried to create a tech plan in 1 minute. It helps when you can speed up time, prepopulate things and not really finish the process.

Of course, I would recommend transforming your spreadsheet into a narrative providing additional information, plus a more detailed project plan and overview, but what do you want in 1 minute. Seriously.

But I think this can jump start anyone that is struggling with how to start a tech plan.

Grab your popcorn, but eat fast, this is only 1 minute.

Tech Priorities sabotage strategy.

"Our database needs to be replaced."

"Our website needs a redesign immediately."

"Our network is down."

Typically followed by:

"In the best interest of the org we need to make this a priority and focus only on it."

All of these projects would need to be made top priority and would require the highest attention. I am not denying the simple fact that IT is often required to focus on a single project or drop everything to fix something.

But as I think through my experiences and so many stories that I have heard, I hear a common theme. "The project we were working on was so critical to one team or goal...... but somehow we missed how it would impact the full org or other goals."

Software is a classic example of this.

1. How many times have we heard about a single department or program area running out to get software to meet their needs without first checking with IT to see if it was the right choice? 
• This meets the immediate needs and may be the best solution. But a good discussion of how the data will be created, stored, used and shared is critical.
2. Or how many times have we changed software packages only to realize that it was our process that was broken not the software and our old software actually did have the functionality we needed?
• Often we blame technology for our ineffective processes 

Websites carry the same issue.

1. We spend time defining the audience, the design, the functionality, the goals we hope to accomplish and are very deliberate about everything.  But then once the website is implemented we suddenly realize that it isn't integrated with our core database, we have created manual work-arounds to collect email signups from the website or includes tools that overlap existing ones used internally?
• We don't always take time to understand the tools used to build our website or to explore other options.
2. We often also forget to think through what we will do with the data, analytics and transactions that happen on our website and what the follow up process will need to be.
• How does what happens on our website impact our work and what will we have to do as a result?

Often we do everything we are supposed to within a project to ensure it's success! But without a dedicated resource that reviews all tech projects as a whole, you will miss opportunities to evaluate the impact on the overall org.

Every nonprofit should have a resource, whether internal or external, helping them develop a technology strategy that can be used as a decision framework for technology projects.

Don't let the immediacy of a need or the lack of resources dictate your technology strategy. You will pay for it in the short and long run.

Lack of budget can be such a bad excuse.

Lack of budget and resources is a real problem across many nonprofits. I am not denying that fact.

One of my favorite NPTech people, David Krumlauf, has been making the circuit and speaking with foundations to convince them of the importance of funding technology for nonprofits. The days of "we only fund programs" and "we don't fund overhead" is just so backwards thinking. It is like saying we want to fund you, but it isn't our concern how effective, efficient or if you can get the tools to succeed.

But with that being said, I have heard too many nonprofits talk about and almost hide behind the excuse of "we don't have the budget for technology."

One of the things that I respect about my new job is how they get every penny out of the technology they have. They are able to make magic happen with spreadsheets, a custom SQL database built over time, low cost software, and 1 tech person (until I started).

When someone talks about their low tech budgets the questions I ask are:

1. Are you using your current technology to the full capacity? 
• There are often features, modules, add-ons, plugins, short cuts and other parts of our tools that we just never took the time to explore, implement or use
2. Have you taken time to review your business processes?
• Often we don't even know where our inefficiencies are, are we working smart?
3. Have your prioritized your tech needs to be sure your tech budget is allocated correctly?
• Technology does cost money and you have to make the budget for mission impact technology
4. Have you leveraged nonprofit discounts and donations?
• Look for cost savings on non-mission impact technology
5. Are you proactive in your tech spending or reactive? 
• Fighting fires costs more than preventing them

But even with those questions it is a lost point often because of a lack of time be proactive and\or a lack of staff expertise in business process. In those cases it is best to look for outside support, turn to your board, lean on vendors, look for pro-bono help and start your planning somewhere!

Nonprofits often work on shoestring budgets but make huge impact on real issues. Nonprofits get creative with their solutions. Nonprofits change the world every day, often with very little funds.  They find a way to make it happen. I would love to see some of that effort, creativity and problem solving put toward their core technology (and no I don't mean social media, web or the surface tech). The trains need to run on time.

Is the business stakeholder always right?

The customer is always right. Isn't that what they always say?

Well in some people's minds, the stakeholder is the customer for IT staff. So therefore the stakeholder is always right?  

Um, how do I put this delicately enough so to keep the stakeholder's support but still get the job done in the best way for the org. No. The stakeholder isn't always right.

(SIDE NOTE! I completely disagree about calling people customers as IT staff, we should partner with the staff in our org as IT staff, not just take orders)

In a previous job we were working to select a CMS for our website. IT and Marketing collaborated closely to create the RFP, select a group of vendors, narrow the choices and then at the end we voted for our top choice. Seems very reasonable right? 

But the voting was just a way to let Marketing make the decision because they were the stakeholder. IT needed their support to make the website successful. So we let the conversation, decision and process lean in their favor. They know what is best, let them lead and decide.

In the end we loved our design and our website overall. But a month didn't go by without us struggling as a team of IT and Marketing to get the functionality to work for us. We had a tool that limited our flexibility, required many work-arounds and didn't meet our needs. We had repeated releases to try to address the issues, but a few of our problems were a direct result of the choice of CMS\vendor that we made.

Did we do what was best for the stakeholder by not pushing harder to educate or illustrate the challenges we would face?

Many times it seemed like all we did was set us up to be blamed for not being able to make the website work. And for us to retort with, well you picked the tool. Now it wasn't as school playground, smack talky like that. No it was just this hidden, ugh kind of feeling.

So is the business stakeholder always right? My answer is. Lead with a yes, they are right, but some education and push back can go a long way to avoid organizational problems that won't go away. Before a large decision like this starts, clearly define areas of expertise and then let the expert make the decision, not always the stakeholder.

Just my thoughts as I reflect.