Thegoodbadandugly

Slide 1: 2007-2008 Certificate in Nonprofit Leadership & Management The good, bad, and the ugly Technology implementations Silona Bonewald Founder of Leagueoftechvoters.org Silona@silona.com © 2008 TANO and Center for Community-Based and Nonprofit Organizations at Austin Community College

Slide 2: 2 What makes Tech go bad? No support   No training or materials Not understanding the purpose   Tech doesn’t match abilities of staff or volunteers Too much   Risks not managed Too little   Insufficient governance Too complex   Underestimating complexity No backups   No stress tests Not having a policy in place to  deal with errors  Not enough infrastructure No restorable backups   No planning for process changes Multiple databases   Wrong language No change management   Bad User Interface Data isn’t portable   Volunteers leaving you Thinking Free means no cost  stranded Partial implementations   Not maintainable Not enough budgeted   Software no longer supported © 2008 TANO and Center for Community-Based and Nonprofit Organizations at Austin Community College

Slide 3: 3 Really boils down to…  Poor design  Bad management © 2008 TANO and Center for Community-Based and Nonprofit Organizations at Austin Community College

Slide 4: 4 Budget Analysis Design (see if something has already been written) Implementation Testing repeat © 2008 TANO and Center for Community-Based and Nonprofit Organizations at Austin Community College

Slide 5: 5 For example…  Business process and equipment inventory to determine starting pt  Determine exactly what you want the new system to do and create an RFP of features  Research current implementations  Bid this out  Communicate what this means to all levels in your org, employees, board, supporters, volunteers  Training for all during and before deployment  Check in with all volunteers and staff  Determine if current deployment is effective © 2008 TANO and Center for Community-Based and Nonprofit Organizations at Austin Community College

Slide 6: 6 Unexpected gotcha’s  Keeps your information from you  No data integration Get an expert to help with design © 2008 TANO and Center for Community-Based and Nonprofit Organizations at Austin Community College

Slide 7: 7 That said…  What are some problems you have had?  What are some mistakes in implementation you have seen or experienced? © 2008 TANO and Center for Community-Based and Nonprofit Organizations at Austin Community College